Russian Sounds and Inflections

Glossary of Terms

GLOSSARY OF TERMS ABLAUT: the replacement of one vowel with another in a word root in the course of word formation, as the change of о to  in сос с ш  . Ablaut is usually distinguished from instances in which one vowel “goes to” another under phonologically describable circumstances, as when, for example, unstressed {o} goes to /a/, as in о /pará/. ABSTRACT PHONOLOGY: refers to phonological (sound-change) rules which are not motivated by or stated in terms of the concrete phonetic features of which phonemes are composed. ACRONYM: a word artificially constructed of the initials or parts of other words, for example  from  о коомск ол к). ADJECTIVE: a part of speech whose function is to qualify nouns according to some property, whether intrinsic or acquired. The items бл, ск, л are adjectives. ADVERB: a word which, in a sentence, modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Most adverbs are adverbs of manner which are derived from adjectives (for example !оош from !ош ). Adverbs answer questions like “how, when, where, why, for how long.” Some adverbs are primary, i.e., not derived from an adjective, for example, гд,  , сгд , о$ , л ко, %. AFFECTIVE: said of a derivation or word-form with emotional content. For example, a nickname like Кл from  кол  is emotionally tinged, hence the derivation is affective. AFFIX: in Russian, either a prefix or a suffix; by convention, not a grammatical (inflectional) ENDING. See also FORMANT. 448 GLOSSARY OF TERMS AGREEMENT: the property of a class of words to change endings in accordance with a property of another class of words. For example, adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number, and case, and take different endings accordingly. AKAN’E: the pronunciation of unstressed {o} as /a/, as in ок /aknó/. ALLOMORPHS: regularly alternating MORPHS. Insofar as their distribution is predictable, the Gpl. morphs -о and - are allomorphs of the same Gpl. morpheme. ALLOPHONE: regularly alternating PHONES. For example, the Russian phone [y] alternates with [i] predictably, according to whether the preceding consonant is phonetically hard or soft; hence [y] and [i] are allophones of the phoneme /i/. ANIMACY: in Russian, a sub-gender which crosscuts masculine singular nouns, and all nouns in the plural. Animacy is indicated by the identity of the Accusative form with the Genitive. Animate nouns can refer to animate beings, including mythological creatures, and to certain folk dances and gaming terms. ASPECT: a verbal category referring to whether a situation described by the verb is a state or an action; and, if an action, how it unfolds: progressively, completively, habitually, or inherently. Russian grammatical aspect refers to whether a verb is “perfective” or “imperfective”. Perfective verbs refer to completive acts in either past or future time which result in a change of state or situation; imperfective verbs refer to states, actions or events in progress; to habitual or generic states, actions, and events; and to completive actions and events that do not result in a change of state or situation. ASPECT PAIR: Two lexically similar verbs which differ primarily as to ASPECT (perfective or imperfective), may be referred to as an “aspect pair”. For example, ш (pf.) and ш  (impf.), both meaning ‘decide’, comprise an aspect pair. The individual verbs may be described as ASPECT PARTNERS of each other. ASPECTUALITY: A semantically based aspectual subcategory into which grammatical ASPECT may be further subdivided. For example, the GLOSSARY OF TERMS 449 imperfective aspect breaks down into such aspectualities as habitual, frequentative, and generic. ASSIMILATION: In phonology, the adoption by one sound of one or more features of a following sound (REGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION), or a preceding sound (PROGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION). For example, in л к, voiced assimilates to the following voiceless к, and is pronounced ф. ASYLLABIC: a MORPHEME or MORPH consisting of no syllabic element, i.e., no vowel, is said to be asyllabic. The root of д  , д-, is asyllabic. See also SYLLABLE, MONOSYLLABIC, DISYLLABIC. AUGMENTATIVE: a derivation consisting in the adding of a semantic component ‘big’, ‘large’, or ‘out-sized’, for example, the derivation of дом% from дм. BASE FORM: a lexical reference form in which an inflected word is cited in a specialized dictionary or lexicon. The base form of a Russian word, including possible accompanying notation, provides the information necessary to produce all of the inflected forms of the word from it, including place of stress. CASE: a grammatical category of nouns (including for this purpose PRONOUNS and NUMERALS), indicated in Russian by inflectional endings added to a stem, typically helping to signal the function of the noun in a sentence. Russian nouns exhibit nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental...