Russian Phonology, Russian Grammar

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
2
Abbreviations
3
0.1 Location and number of speakers
4
0.2 Brief overview of the Russian literary language
4
0.3 Dialects
5
1. Phonology
6
1.1 Orthography
6
1.2 Phonemic inventory
8
1.3. Vowels and Prosody
9
1.4 Consonants
13
1.5 Morphophonemic alternations
17
1.6 Pronunciations variants of CSR in Moscow and St. Petersburg
20
1.7 Tongue twisters and diction
21
2. Morphology
22
2.1 Inflectional morphology
22
2.2 Declension
24
2.3 Indeclinable Nouns
29
2.4 Other declensional desinences: singular
30
2.5 Declensional desinences: plural
31
2.6 Formation of the Genitive Plural
32
2.7 The semantics of the Russian case system
34
2.8 Adjectives
41
2.9 Pronouns
49
2.10 Numerals
56
2.11 Time expressions
62
2.12 Nondeclinables: Adverbs and prepositions
64
2.13 Derivational Morphology
67
2.14 Verbs
82
3. Syntax
123
3.1 Syntax and syntactic categories
123
3.2 Conditionals/Hypotheticals
123
3.3 Grammatical particles
124
3.4 Verbal government
125
3.5 Impersonal constructions
125
3.6 Proverbs and collocations
127
3.7 Use of profanity in CSR
127
Bibliography
129
1
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without the reviews and criticisms of several
respected colleagues, including Ron Feldstein, Elena Maksimova and Irina Guliakova.
My special thanks to Troy Williams for his assistance in editing, glossing and preparing a
camera-ready manuscript.
2
Abbreviations
A
accusative
adj
adjective
adv
adverb
anim
animate
arc
archaic
C
consonant
CSR
Contemporary Standard Russian
CSCR
Contemporary Standard Colloquial Russian
D
dative
f, fem
feminine
G
genitive
I
instrumental
inan
inanimate
L
locative
m, masc
masculine
N
nominative
n, neut
neuter
pl
plural
sg
singular
V
vowel
n/s
non-syllabic
PPP
past passive participle
Ø
zero desinence
/ /
phonemic transcription
[ ]
phonetic transcription
{ }
morphophonemic and morphological transcription
' '
English glosses
3
0. Socio- and geolinguistic situation
0.1 Location and number of speakers
Russian is the official language of the Russian Federation and was the primary official
language of the Soviet Union (cf. Maps 1 and 2). Since the breakup of the USSR, Russian
continues to be one of the official languages of Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, and may be used
for official purposes in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Recently ranked as the 4th most
influential language in the world (Weber 1999: 22), Russian is the first or second language
of over 455 million speakers (Crystal 1997: 449).
0.2 Brief overview of the Russian literary language
Russian, belonging to the Indo-European language family, is one of three contemporary
East Slavic languages, the other two being Ukrainian and Belorussian. Old Church
Slavonic, a South Slavic language, played a significant role in the development of the
Russian language throughout its history with two periods of intensification, one during
the 11th-13th centuries and another during the Second South Slavic influence (also
referred to as “Re-Bulgarization”) in the 14th century. One may characterize the
coexistence of Old Church Slavonic and the East Slavic vernacular as
diglossic
. This
period of diglossia lasted well into the 18th century.
Isačenko suggests that the name “Russian” be used for the written language only after the
Tartar invasion and the destruction of Kiev (1980: 124). [Prior to this period, he suggests
the term “East Slavic recension of Church Slavonic.”] Isačenko argues convincingly that
one may begin to speak of a Russian literary language (which will later give rise to CSR)
during a period from 1760-1825, dates that generally correspond with Karamzin’s life
[1766-1825] (1980: 132-139).
Mixail Vasiljevič Lomonosov, Nikolaj Mixailovič Karamzin and Aleksandr Sergeevič
Puškin were critical contributors to the development of what can be referred to as the
modern Russian literary language. While the contributions of all 3 were significant,
Karamzin was perhaps the most influential. However, it has often been the case in
Russian and Soviet scholarship that Puškin has been given most of the credit for the
creation of a literary language and style (Vinogradov 1990: 6-7).
Lotman and Uspenskij (1975: 196-7, 246) demonstrate the importance of French
influence as a model of constructing a literary language in Russia and argue that it was, in
fact, the “Russian language” of the aristocracy that made the greatest impact on the
Russian literary language. German also plays an important role in the formation of
scientific terminology and lexicon during the 18th and 19th centuries (Isačenko 1980:
135).
Over the past 200 years, the Russian literary language (henceforth Contemporary
Standard Russian - CSR) has remained generally stable, but certainly reflects a number of
phonological, morphological and lexical changes. The most significant of these changes is
found in the lexicon, where not only declensional and agreement gender have been (or are
being) renegotiated (cf.
lebed’
(f > m);
kofe
(m > n)), but the overall number of lexical
4
borrowings has become significantly increased. According to Verbickaja (2001: 5), 9,000
lexical borrowings into CSR are registered for the period 1960-85, while almost 2,000 per
year have been registered since 1986. The large majority of these lexemes are restricted
not only to specialized vocabulary in areas like economics and technologies, but are also
restricted stylistically and occur primarily in media. Such a massive influx of new lexical
items has impacted areas of the phonological system of CSR, especially in terms of
consonant palatalization (cf. 1.3-1.4).
0.3 Dialects
In order to appropriately introduce a description of the Russian dialects, it is necessary to
point out that there has not been an adequate amount of scholarly study of the Russian
dialects in the 20th century (Kiparsky 1979: 21). Those studies that exist include most
notably the 1915 study by Moscow Dialectological Commission, a study published in
1965 by Avanesov and Orlova, and a major survey of the Russian dialects under the
direction of Edward Stankiewicz.
Kiparsky (1979: 21-25) divides the dialects of Russian into 3 major groups with a total of
8 subgroups:
I. North Great Russian dialects: Northern, Olonec, Western, Eastern, Vladimir-Volga
II. Central Great Russian dialects
III. South Great Russian dialects: Southern, Eastern, Northern
CSR is considered to be formed from a combination of north and south Russian dialects
(Meščerskij 1972).
The general trend in linguistics conducted in the Russian Federation of the late 20th
century is to emphasize the assimilation of dialects to the standard literary language and
to characterize the remaining differences as either disappearing or substandard.
5
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Russian Phonology, Russian Grammar

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