07 Fundamentals of Modern Belarusian.pdf

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Fundamentals of Modern Belarusian
By Chris Marchant
Introduction
ii
Chapter 1
Spelling Rules
1
Chapter 2
Noun Declension
5
Chapter 3
Additional Points on Noun Declension
17
Chapter 4
Irregular Plurals
21
Chapter 5
Adjective Declension
23
Chapter 6
Comparative and Superlative Adjective
27
Chapter 7
Personal Pronouns
31
Chapter 8
Possessive and Demonstrative Pronouns
33
Chapter 9
Interrogative and Relative Pronouns
37
Chapter 10
Numerals
39
Chapter 11
1 st Conjugation Verbs
45
Chapter 12
2 nd Conjugation Verbs
49
Chapter 13
Miscellaneous Verbs
51
Chapter 14
Reflexive Verbs
53
Chapter 15
Past Tenses
55
Chapter 16
Present and Future Tenses
57
Chapter 17
The Imperative
59
Chapter 18
Verbs of Motion
63
Chapter 19
Verbal Prefixes
67
Chapter 20
Gerunds and Participles
71
Chapter 21
The Nominative Case
73
Chapter 22
The Accusative Case
75
Chapter 23
The Genitive Case
79
Chapter 24
The Dative Case
83
Chapter 25
The Instrumental Case
85
Chapter 26
The Prepositional Case
87
Chapter 27
Prepositional Oddities
89
Chapter 28
Conditional Sentences
91
Chapter 29
Adverbs
93
Chapter 30
Conjunctions and Particles
97
GNU Free Documentation License
101
i
While living in several former republics of the USSR, I learned to speak Russian,
the lingua franca of CIS countries. Russian is spoken by the majority of adults in the
CIS, and has served me well wherever I have traveled in the former Soviet Union.
Russian is the dominant language in Belarus. Nevertheless, Belarusian still holds a
prominent position in Belarusian society as a symbol of Belarusian identity and
nationalism. Many government documents are printed only in Belarusian and most
street signs are in Belarusian. Every schoolchild is required to learn the language, and
almost all Belarusians can speak it at least to some extent. A knowledge of Belarusian
is valuable to anyone who spends any amount of time in Belarus.
This book was written with the assumption that the reader is already
moderately familiar with either Russian or Ukrainian. Little explanation is given of noun
gender and cases, or verb aspect and tenses. The reader should consult either a
Russian or Ukrainian grammar for more details on these principles. I have attempted,
in this book, to thoroughly describe those parts of Belarusian grammar that differ
from Russian or Ukrainian.
There is great variation in the Belarusian language from region to region, and
any attempt to make an authoritative description of the Belarusian language will be
plagued by this fact. I have strived to make this work as consistent as possible with
the standard Belarusian used in most literature. To this end, I have set forth the most
common declensions, conjugations, and vocabulary.
To my comrades of the Vitebskaya Banda
Copyright (c) 2004 Christian Cardell Marchant.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License".
ii
Chapter 1
Spelling Rules
It is important to understand Belarusian spelling. It is quite complex and more
difficult than Russian. Most of the complexity of Belarusian morphology is a result of
spelling rules. This problem is aggravated by the competition between two existing
sets of spelling rules, hereafter referred to as the Phonetic and Official orthographies.
I have chosen the Official orthography for this work since it has more acceptance. I
have noted in this chapter those ways in which the Phonetic differs from the Official
orthography.
1.1
Vowels
Belarusian has 10 letters which represent vowel sounds. They can be divided
into two categories, non-iotized vowels, and their iotized counterparts. The letters in
the second column represent the same sounds as the vowels in the first, except they
have an initial “y” sound.
!
"
#
$
%
&
'
(
)
*
1.2
Invariably Hard Consonants
The letters +, ,, -, ., /, and 0 are always hard, they are never followed by any
letter from the second column. In a situation where a word’s morphology would
normally place an iotized vowel after a + or a ., those consonants are changed to +1
or 2 respectively. In a situation where an iotized vowel would normally follow a ,, -,
/, or 0, that vowel is changed to its non-iotized counterpart. The consonants 3, 4, 5
are never followed by the letter '. In a situation where an ' would normally occur, it
is changed to an ( if following one of these three letters.
6"+ !
misery
% 6"+1 *
in misery
3!- !
mountain
7! 3!- '
on the mountain
8", !
boundary
7! 8", '
on the boundary
9(- # 3
pastry
9(-!3 (
pastries
-!:. % 2;
they grow
-!:2 *
it grows
1
1.3
Impossibility of unstressed #, ), or $
The letters #, ), and $ only exist when stressed. When unstressed, the letters #
and ) change to !. The letter $ usually changes to a *, but sometimes it also changes
to a ". See 1.4 for more details on spelling rules that effect *. Care must be taken
when stress shifts to a different syllable.
Sing.
Pl.
<#=
<!= '
ox
:!:7 !
: # :7'
pine tree
:.#=
:.!= '
table
There are exceptions, all of which are loan words.
- ! +'$
radio
.)=*< ( 1!-
television
)4!7 # 8(4!
economy
1.4
Conversion of * to other vowels
Any * or $, which immediately precedes the accent, is changed to a.
!+1 * 2;
to dress(per.)
!+1"< ! 2;
to dress(imp.)
< * 2*-
wind
<".- '
winds
Most exceptions to this are foreign words
6*71 ( 7
gasoline
:*1 # 7
season
:*87 ! 22!2;
seventeen
)=*4.- # 7
electron
1.5
Conversion of # to '
In words with the accent on the last syllable, it is common for a preceding
syllable –-#- to change to –-'-.
6- # <'
eyebrows
6-'< #
eyebrow
3-#8
thunder
3-'8 * 2;
to rumble
4-#>
blood
4-'< (
of blood
2
1.6
The apostrophe
In Belarusian, this letter fills the function of the Russian letter ?. It only occurs
following a consonant, and preceding an iotized vowel. Having no sound of its own,
its function is to separate the sound of the vowel following it from the consonant
preceding it. This is either to prevent the consonant from being softened, or to
conform to spelling rules because the preceding consonant is invariably hard.
!6'"< ( 2;
to declare
9' " 7'
intoxicated
:%-' $ 17'
serious
1.7
Assimilation
Belarusian de-voices its consonants exactly like Russian. Voiced consonants
followed by unvoiced consonants are pronounced as unvoiced. Unvoiced consonants
followed by voiced consonants are pronounced voiced. Consonants at the end of
words are pronounced as unvoiced. These rules are not completely reliable.
Belarusians seem to be inconsistent in following them.
Belarusian has assimilation with respect to softness. If a consonant is soft, an
immediately preceding consonant is also softened, provided it is one of the eligible
consonants. Only the consonants +1, 1, =, 7, :, and 2 are eligible to be softened in
this way. In the Phonetic orthography, a ; is placed between the two softened
consonants. For the purposes of both assimilation and pronunciation, the letter
combination +1 is treated as a single letter. The consonants 6, <, 8, and @ are not
softened this way, but if they are followed by an iotized vowel, consonants that
precede it can be softened by assimilation. The invariably hard consonants cannot be
softened this way, and will prevent those consonants preceding them from being
softened by assimilation.
Phonetic
Official
+1;< * -'
+1< * -'
door
$:;2;
$:2;
there is
9 * :;7"
9 * :7"
song
3

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