Russian_Grammar.pdf

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

0.1 Location and number of speakers

0.2 Brief overview of the Russian literary language

0.3 Dialects

1. Phonology

1.1 Orthography

1.2 Phonemic inventory

1.3. Vowels and Prosody

1.4 Consonants

1.5 Morphophonemic alternations

1.6 Pronunciations variants of CSR in Moscow and St. Petersburg

1.7 Tongue twisters and diction

2. Morphology

2.1 Inflectional morphology

2.2 Declension

2.3 Indeclinable Nouns

2.4 Other declensional desinences: singular

2.5 Declensional desinences: plural

2.6 Formation of the Genitive Plural

2.7 The semantics of the Russian case system

2.8 Adjectives

2.9 Pronouns

2.10 Numerals

2.11 Time expressions

2.12 Nondeclinables: Adverbs and prepositions

2.13 Derivational Morphology

2.14 Verbs

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

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.

Abbreviations

accusative

adj

adjective

adv

adverb

anim

animate

arc

archaic

consonant

CSR

Contemporary Standard Russian

CSCR

Contemporary Standard Colloquial Russian

dative

f, fem

feminine

genitive

instrumental

inan

inanimate

locative

m, masc

masculine

nominative

n, neut

neuter

plural

singular

vowel

n/s

non-syllabic

PPP

past passive participle

zero desinence

/ /

phonemic transcription

[ ]

phonetic transcription

{ }

morphophonemic and morphological transcription

' '

English glosses

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

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.

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