Fundamentals in the Structure and History of Russian: A Usage-Based Approach

Introduction to Part II

INTRODUCTION TO PART II     It’s  one  thing  to  speak  Russian  well,  another  to  understand  how  Rus-­‐‑ sian  is  put  together  and  how  to  make  sense  of  the  manifold  irregulari-­‐‑ ties  that  plague  both  native  speakers  and  learners  of  Russian.  Anyone   with  an  expertise  in  Russian  should  have  at  least  a  basic  idea  of  how  to   account   for   its   inflectional   irregularities,   alternations   in   derivation,   spelling  conventions,  fleeting  vowels,  and  other  important  aspects  of   the  language.  Earlier  we  discussed  how  Russian  sounds  interact  with   each  other  in  words  and  we  presented  a  means  for  describing  this  in-­‐‑ teraction.  The  following  chapters  will  introduce  a  description  of  how   Russian   words   are   put   together   by   means   of   roots,   suffixes,   and   endings.   Keep   in   mind   that   the   goal   of   these   chapters   is   to   describe   how   Russian  words  are  put  together.  We  want  to  do  so  in  a  consistent  and   straightforward  way  and,  during  the  process,  we  want  to  capture  as   many  generalizations  as  possible  about  the  modern  language.  The  ap-­‐‑ proach   taken,   therefore,   is   a  synchronic   account   of   Russian   word   for-­‐‑ mation:  we  limit  our  investigation  strictly  to  the  language  that  is  used   by   speakers   today.   We   hope   that   this   methodology   mimics   in   some   way   the   knowledge   that   native   speakers   of   Russian   gain   about   their   language.  The  main  questions  we  want  to  answer  are:       (1)   What  are  the  component  parts  of  Russian  words?     (2)   What  happens  when  these  components  are  combined?     (3)   How  does  our  description  simplify  apparent  irregularities  in   declension  and  conjugation?     (4)   What  processes  characterize  word  formation?     A  description  of  a  language  does  not  answer  why  a  language  is  the   way  it  is.  It  simply  is  a  description  of  a  current  state.  To  answer  “why,”   we   must   look   at   the   historical   development   of   the   language:   what   happened   hundreds   and   thousands   of   years   ago   that   made   the   lan-­‐‑ 68 INTRODUCTION TO PART II guage  as  it  appears  today.  That  would  be  a  diachronic  description  and   will  be  the  task  of  Part  III.  However,  before  we  attempt  to  understand   the  “why,”  it  is  important  first  to  understand  the  “what.”   ...