Russian grammar

Russian grammar (Russian: грамматика русского языка; IPA: [ɡrɐˈmatʲɪkə ˈruskəvə jɪzɨˈka]; also русская грамматика; IPA: [ˈruskəjə ɡrɐˈmatʲɪkə]) encompasses:

• a highly inflexional morphology, particularly in nominals, less so in verbs;
• a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements:
  • a Church Slavonic inheritance;
  • a Western European style;
  • a polished vernacular foundation.

The Russian language has preserved an Indo-European inflexional structure, although considerable adaptation has taken place.

The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one, but it continues to preserve some characteristic forms. Russian dialects show various non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms discarded by the literary language.

NOTE: In the discussion below, various terms are used in the meaning they have in standard Russian discussions of historical grammar. In particular, aorist, imperfect, etc. are considered verbal tenses rather than aspects, because ancient examples of them are attested for both perfective and imperfective verbs.

Nouns

Nominal declension is subject to six cases – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional – in two numbers (singular and plural), and absolutely obeying grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Up to ten additional cases are identified in linguistics textbooks,^[1][2][3] although all of them are either incomplete (do not apply to all nouns) or degenerate (appear identical to one of the six simple cases). The most recognized additional cases are locative (в лесу, в крови, в слезах), partitive (чаю, сахару, коньяку), and several forms of vocative (Господи, Боже, отче). The adjectives, pronouns, and the first two cardinal numbers further vary by gender. Old Russian also had a third number, the dual, but it has been lost except for its use in the nominative and accusative cases with the numbers two, three and four (e.g. два стула [dvɐ ˈstulə], "two chairs", now reanalyzed as genitive singular).

Russian noun cases often replace the usage of prepositions in Indo-European languages.^[4] Their usage can be summarised as:

• Nominative – the "subject" case
• Accusative – the "object" case
• Genitive – corresponding to the possessive case or "of + (noun)"
• Dative – corresponding to "to + (noun)"
• Instrumental – denoting an instrument used in an action
• Prepositional – used with many common prepositions, such as "in", "on" etc.

There are no definite or indefinite articles (such as the, a, an in English) in the Russian language. The sense of a noun is determined from the context in which it appears. That said, there are some means of expressing whether a noun is definite or indefinite. They are:

• The use of a direct object in the genitive instead of the accusative in negation signifies that the noun is indefinite, compare: "Я не ви́жу кни́ги" ("I don't see a book" or "I don't see any books") and "Я не ви́жу кни́гу" ("I don't see the book").
• The use of the numeral one sometimes signifies that the noun is indefinite, e.g.: "Почему́ ты так до́лго?" - "Да так, встре́тил одного́ дру́га, пришло́сь поговори́ть" ("Why did it take you so long?" - "Well, I met one [=a] friend and had to talk").
• Word order may also be used for this purpose, compare "В ко́мнату вбежа́л ма́льчик" ("Into the room rushed a boy") and "Ма́льчик вбежа́л в ко́мнату" ("The boy rushed into the room").
• The plural form may signify indefiniteness: "Вы мо́жете купи́ть э́то в магази́нах" ("You can buy this in shops") vs. "Вы мо́жете купи́ть э́то в магази́не" ("You can buy this in the shop").

The category of animacy is relevant in Russian nominal and adjectival declension.^[5] Specifically, the accusative has two possible forms in many paradigms, depending on the animacy of the referent. For animate referents (people and animals), the accusative form is generally identical to the genitive form. For inanimate referents, the accusative form is identical to the nominative form. This principle is relevant for masculine singular nouns of the second declension (see below) and adjectives, and for all plural paradigms (with no gender distinction). In the tables below, this behavior is indicated by the abbreviation N or G in the row corresponding to the accusative case.

In Russian there are three declensions:^[6]

• The first declension is used for most masculine and neuter nouns.
• The second declension is used for feminine nouns ending with -а/-я and some masculine nouns having the same form as those of feminine gender, such as па́па papa or дя́дя uncle; also there are common-gender nouns like зади́ра tease which are masculine or feminine depending on the person they refer.
• The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in ь.

There are also a group of several irregular "different-declension nouns" (Russian: разносклоняемые существительные), consisting of a few neuter nouns ending in -мя (e.g. время "time") and one masculine noun путь "way". However, these nouns and their forms have sufficient similarity with feminine third declension nouns that some scholars such as Litnevskaya^[7] consider them to be non-feminine forms of this declension, as written in the tables below.

Nouns ending with -ий, -ия, -ие (not to be confused with substantivated adjectives) are written with -ии instead of -ие in Prepositional (as this ending is never stressed, there is no difference in pronunciation): тече́ние - в ни́жнем тече́нии реки́ "streaming - in lower streaming of a river". But if words в течение and в продолжение are representing compound preposition meaning "while, during the time of", they are written with -е: в тече́ние ча́са "in a time of an hour". For nouns ending in -ья, -ье, or -ьё, using -ьи in the Prepositional (where endings of some of them are stressed) is usually erroneous, but in poetic speech it may be acceptable (as we replace -ии with -ьи for metric or rhyming purposes): Весь день она́ лежа́ла в забытьи́ (F. Tyutchev).

First declension - masculine nouns

Masculine nouns

Second declension

Feminine nouns with a small set of masculine nouns

Neuter nouns

Third declension

The Third declension is mostly for feminine nouns with some masculine and neuter.

Feminine and some masculine nouns

A small set of neutral nouns

Undeclined nouns

Some nouns (such as borrowings from other languages, abbreviations, etc.) are not modified when they change number and case. This appears mostly when their gender appears to have no ending in any declension which suits the final part of the word.

Adjectives

A Russian adjective ([имя] прилагательное) is usually placed before the noun it qualifies, and it agrees with the noun in case, gender, and number. With the exception of a few invariant forms borrowed from other languages, such as беж 'beige' or хаки 'khaki',^[8] most adjectives follow one of a small number of regular declension patterns, except for some which provide difficulty in forming the short form. In modern Russian, the short form appears only in the nominative and is used when the adjective is in a predicative role; formerly (as in the bylinas) short adjectives appeared in all other forms and roles, which are not used in modern language, but are nonetheless understandable to Russian speakers as they are declined exactly like nouns of the corresponding gender.^[9]

Adjectives may be divided into three general groups:

• Qualitative (ка́чественные) — denote quality of the object; only they are usual to have degrees of comparison.
• Relational (относи́тельные) — denote some sort of relationship; unlikely to act as a predicate or have a short form.
• Possessive (притяжа́тельные) — denote belonging to a specific subject; have some declensional peculiarities.

Adjectival declension

The pattern described below suits for full forms of most adjectives, except possessive ones; it is also used for substantivated adjectives as учёный and for adjectival participles.

1. After a sibilant or velar consonant, и, instead of ы, is written.
2. When a masculine adjective ends in -ой, the -ой is stressed.
3. After a sibilant consonant, neuter adjectives end in ее. It is sometimes called the хорошее rule.
4. Accusative in the masculine gender and in plural depends on animacy, as for nouns.
5. Instrumental feminine ending -ой/ей has alternative form -ою/ею for all adjectives, which has only stylistical difference.

Russian differentiates between hard-stem (as above) and soft-stem adjectives. Note the following:

• Masculine adjectives ending in the nominative in ий and neuters in ее are declined as follows: его (read: ево), ему, им, and ем.
• Feminine adjectives in яя are declined ей and юю.
• Plural adjectives in ие are declined их, им, ими and их.
• Case endings -ого/-его are to be read as -ово/ево.

Comparison of adjectives

Comparison forms are usual only for qualitative adjectives and adverbs. Comparative and superlative synthetic forms are not part of the paradigm of original adjective but are different lexical items, since not all qualitative adjectives have them. A few adjectives have irregular forms which are declined as usual adjectives: большой 'big' — больший 'bigger', хороший 'good' — лучший 'better'. Most synthetically derived comparative forms are derived by adding -ее or -ей to adjective stem: красный 'red' — краснее 'more red'; these forms are difficult to distinguish from adverbs, and probably they are adverbs.^[9] Superlative synthetic forms are derived by adding suffix -ейш- or -айш- and additionally sometimes prefix наи-, or using special comparative form with наи-: добрый 'kind' — добрейший 'the kindest', большой 'big' — наибольший 'the biggest'.

Another way of comparison are analytical forms with adverbs более 'more' / менее 'less' and самый 'most' / наиболее 'most' / наименее 'least': добрый 'kind' — более добрый 'kinder' — самый добрый 'the kindest'. This way is rarely used if special comparative forms exists.

Possessive adjectives

Possessive adjectives are used in Russian to a lesser extent than in most other Slavic languages,^[10] but are still in use. They answer on the questions чей? чья? чьё? чьи? (whose?) and denote only animated possessors.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

• Russian is subject to T-V distinction. The respectful form of the singular you is the same as the plural form. It begins with a capital letter: Вы, Вас, Вам etc. in following situations: personal letters and official papers (addressee is definite), and questionnaires (addressee is indefinite), otherwise it begins with minuscule. Compare the distinction between du and Sie in German or tu and vous in French.
• When a preposition is used directly before a 3rd-person pronoun, н- is prefixed: у него (read: у нево), с неё, etc. Because the prepositional case always occurs after a preposition, the third person prepositional always starts with an н-.
• Like adjectives and numerals, letter "г" (g) in genitive and accusative form is pronounced as "в" (v) его/него ево/нево.

Demonstrative pronouns

Possessive adjectives and pronouns

Unlike English, Russian uses the same form for a possessive adjective and the corresponding possessive pronoun. In Russian grammar they are called possessive pronouns притяжательные местоимения (compare with possessive adjectives like Peter's = петин above). The following rules apply:

• Possessive pronouns agree with the noun of the possessed in case, gender, and number.
• The reflexive pronoun свой is used when the possessor is the subject of the clause, whatever the person, gender, and number of that subject.
• No non-reflexive exists for the 3rd person: the genitive of the personal pronoun is instead, i.e. его for a masc./neut. sing. possessor, её for a fem. sing. possessor and их for a plural possessor. But unlike other genitives used with a possessive meaning, in modern Russian these words are usually placed before the object of possession.
• Example of the difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns:
  • "Он лю́бит свою́ жену́ = He loves his (own) wife"   while   "Он лю́бит его́ жену́ = He loves his (someone else's) wife".
• Unlike Latin where a similar rule applies for the third person only, Russian accepts using reflexives for all persons:
  • "Люблю́ свою́ жену́ = I love my wife"
  • "Люблю́ себя́ = I love myself"

• The ending -его is pronounced as -ево.

• The ending -его is pronounced as -ево́.

Interrogative pronouns

• The ending ’’-его’’ is pronounced as ‘’-ево’’.

Numerals

Nouns are used in the nominative case after "one" (один рубль, 'one ruble').

After certain other numbers (following Grammatical number rules in Russian) nouns must be declined to genitive plural (десять рублей, 'ten rubles').

Russian has several classes of numerals ([имена] числительные): cardinal, ordinal, collective, and also fractional constructions; also it has other types of words, relative to numbers: collective adverbial forms (вдвоём), multiplicative (двойной) and counting-system (двоичный) adjectives, some numeric-pronominal and indefinite quantity words (сколько, много, несколько). Here are the numerals from 0 to 10:

Declension of cardinals and fractions

Verbs

Grammatical conjugation is subject to three persons in two numbers and two simple tenses (present/future and past), with periphrastic forms for the future and subjunctive, as well as imperative forms and present/past participles, distinguished by adjectival and adverbial usage (see adjectival participle and adverbial participle). Verbs and participles can be reflexive, i.e. have reflexive suffix -ся/-сь appended after ending.

An interesting feature is that the past tense is actually made to agree in gender with the subject, for it is the participle in an originally periphrastic perfect formed (like the perfect passive tense in Latin) with the present tense of the verb "to be" быть [bɨtʲ], which is now omitted except for rare archaic effect, usually in set phrases (откуда есть пошла земля русская [ɐˈtkudə jesʲtʲ pɐˈʂla zʲɪˈmlʲa ˈruskəjə], "whence is come the Russian land", the opening of the Primary Chronicle in modern spelling). The participle nature of past tense forms is exposed also in that they often have extra suffix vowel which is absent in present/future; the same vowel appears in infinitive form which is considered by few scholars not to be verbal (and in the past it surely used to be a noun) but in which verbs appear in most dictionaries: ходить "to walk" - ходил "(he) walked" - хожу "I walk".

Verbal inflection today is considerably simpler than in Old Russian. The ancient aorist, imperfect, and (periphrastic) pluperfect have been lost, though the aorist sporadically occurs in secular literature as late as the second half of the eighteenth century, and survives as an odd form in direct narration (а он пойди да скажи [ɐ on pɐjˈdʲi də skɐˈʐɨ], etc., exactly equivalent to the English colloquial "so he goes and says"), recategorized as a usage of the imperative. The loss of three of the former six tenses has been offset by the development, as in other Slavic languages, of verbal aspect (вид). Most verbs come in pairs, one with imperfective (несовершенный вид) or continuous, the other with perfective (совершенный вид) or completed aspect, usually formed with a (prepositional) prefix, but occasionally using a different root. E.g., спать [spatʲ] ('to sleep') is imperfective; поспать [pɐˈspatʲ] ('to take a nap') is perfective.

The present tense of the verb быть is today normally used only in the third-person singular form есть, which is often used for all the persons and numbers.^[12] As late as the nineteenth century, the full conjugation, which today is extremely archaic, was somewhat more natural: forms occur in the Synodal Bible, in Dostoevsky and in the bylinas (былины [bɨˈlʲinɨ]) or oral folk-epics, which were transcribed at that time. The paradigm shows as well as anything else the Indo-European affinity of Russian:

Infinitive

The Infinitive in Russian has the suffix -ть or -ти, or ends with -чь (but -чь is not a suffix of a verb) (-ся/сь/ся respectively is added after it). It is the basic form of a verb for most purposes of study.

Present-future tense

• -у/-ут,-ат is used after a hard consonant or ж, ш, щ or ч; otherwise -ю/-ют,-ят is used.
• A mutating final consonant may entail a change in the ending.
• е becomes ё when stressed.

There are two forms used to conjugate the present tense of imperfective verbs and the future tense of perfective verbs.

The first conjugation (I) is used in verb stems ending in:

• a consonant,
• -у,-ы or -о,-я
• -е (In addition to below)
• Бить, пить, жить, шить, лить, вить, гнить, брить, стелить, зиджить.
• in -а not preceded by a hush (ж, ш, щ or ч):

The second conjugation (II) involves verb stems ending in:

• -и or -е (Тереть, глядеть, смотреть, видеть, ненавидеть, обидеть, зависеть, терпеть, вертеть, пыхтеть, сидеть, лететь, гудеть, гореть, сопеть, дудеть, блестеть, храпеть, смердеть, хрипеть, шелестеть, хрустеть, сипеть, кишеть, бдеть, звенеть, кряхтеть, кипеть, корпеть, зудеть, скорбеть, тарахтеть, шуметь, зреть, висеть, греметь, шипеть)
• in -а preceded by a hush (ж, ш, щ or ч)(Слышать(To hear.), дышать(To breathe), держать(Keep it up), лежать(Lie,lay), бежать, освежать,бренчать,стучать,мычать,кричать,молчать,рычать,мчать,урчать,звучать,бурчать,ворчать,торчать,журчать,гнать):
• Стоять, бояться

Example: попро-с-ить – попро-ш-у, попро-с-ят [pəprɐˈsʲitʲ, pəprɐˈʂu, pɐˈprosʲɪt] (to have solicited – [I, they] will have solicited).

Examples

There are five irregular verbs. Бежать(To run.), брезжить(To Brezice.)-plural third person are of the first Conjugation., in other forms, second. Хотеть(Want)-In the singular first conjugation, plural the second.Есть(eat)-(Ем,Ешь,Ест,Едим,Едите,Едят). Дать(To give)-(Дам,Дашь,Даст,Дадим,Дадите,Дадут).

Past tense

The Russian past tense is gender specific: –л for masculine singular subjects, –ла for feminine singular subjects, –ло for neuter singular subjects, and –ли for plural subjects. This gender specificity applies to all persons; thus, to say "I slept", a male speaker would say я спал, while a female speaker would say я спалá.

Examples

Exceptions

Moods

Russian verbs can form three moods (наклонения): indicative (изъявительное), conditional (сослагательное) and imperative (повелительное).^[13]

Imperative Mood

The imperative mood second person singular is formed from future-present base of most verbs by adding -и (stressed ending in present-future or if base ends on more than one consonant), -ь (unstressed ending, base on one consonant) or -й (unstressed ending, base on vowel). Plural (including polite на вы) second-person form is made by adding -те to singular one: говорю 'I speak' - говори - говорите, забуду 'I shall forget' - забудь - забудьте, клею 'I glue' - клей - клейте. Some verbs have first-person plural imperative form with -те added to similar simple future or present tense form: пойдёмте 'let us go'. There are other ways of expressing command in Russian; for third person, for example, пусть particle with future can be used: Пусть они замолчат! 'Let them shut up!'.^[14]

Conditional Mood

The conditional mood in Russian is formed by adding the particle бы after the word which marks the supposed subject into a sentence formed like in the past tense. Thus, to say "I would (hypothetically) sleep" or "I would like to sleep", a male speaker would say я спал бы (or я бы поспа́л), while a female speaker would say я спалá бы (or я бы поспала́).

Verbs of Motion

Verbs of motion (also referred to as VoM) are a distinct class of verbs found in several Slavic languages. Due to the extensive semantic information they contain, Russian verbs of motion pose difficulties for non-native learners at all levels of study.^[15] Unprefixed verbs of motion, which are all imperfective, divide into pairs based on the direction of the movement (uni- or multidirectional—sometimes called determinate/indeterminate or definite/indefinite). As opposed to a verb-framed language, in which path is encoded in the verb, but manner of motion typically is expressed with complements, Russian is a satellite language, meaning that these concepts are encoded in both the root of the verb and the particles associated with it, satellites.^[16] Thus, the roots of motion verbs convey the lexical information of manner of movement, e.g. walking, crawling, running, whereas prefixes denote path, e.g. motion in and out of space.^{[17][note 1]} The roots also distinguish between means of conveyance, e.g. by transport or by one’s own power, and, in transitive verbs, the object or person being transported.^[18] The information below provides an outline of the formation and basic usage of unprefixed and prefixed verbs of motion.

Unprefixed Verbs of Motion

This table contains 14 commonly-accepted pairs of Russian verbs of motion, adapted from Muravyova.^{[18][note 2]}

Directionality

Unidirectional Perfectives with ПО-

The addition of the prefix по- to a unidirectional verb of motion makes the verb perfective, denoting the beginning of a movement, i.e. 'setting out'. These perfectives imply that the agent has not yet returned at the moment of speech, e.g.,^[19]

Going vs. Taking

Three pairs of motion verbs generally refer to ‘taking’, ‘leading’ with additional lexical information on manner of motion and object of transport encoded in the verb stem. These are нести/носить, вести/водить, and везти/возить. See below for the specific information on manner and object of transport:^[19]

Prefixed Verbs of Motion

Verbs of motion combine with prefixes to form new aspectual pairs, which lose the distinction of directionality, but gain spatial or temporal meanings. The unidirectional verb serves as the base for the perfective, and the multidirectional as the base for the imperfective. In addition to the meanings conveyed by the prefix and the simplex motion verb, prepositional phrases also contribute to the expression of path in Russian.^[20] Thus, it is important to consider the whole verb phrase when examining verbs of motion.

In some verbs of motion, adding a prefix requires a different stem shape:^[21]

See below for a table the prefixes, their primary meanings, and the prepositions that accompany them, adapted from Muravyova.^[18] Several examples are taken directly or modified from Muravyova.

*only formed from multidirectional VoM

*only formed from multidirectional VoM

*with unidirectional VoM

*With multidirection VoM

*with multidirectional VoM

*with multidirectional VoM

*only formed with multidirectional VoM

Idiomatic Uses

The uni- and multidirectional distinction rarely figures into the metaphorical and idiomatic use of motion verbs, because such phrases typically call for one or the other verb. See below for examples:^[19]

Adjectival participle

Russian adjectival participles can be active or passive; have perfective or imperfective mood; imperfective participles can have present or past tense, while perfective ones in classical language can be only past.^[22] As adjectives, they are declined by case, number and gender. If adjectival participles are derived from reciprocal verbs, they have suffix -ся appended after the adjectival ending; this suffix in participles never takes the short form. Participles are often difficult to distinguish from deverbal adjectives (this is important for some cases of orthography).

Active Present Participle

Лю́ди, живу́щие в э́том го́роде, о́чень до́брые и отве́тственные – The people living in this city are very kind and responsible.

In order to form the Active Present Participle you should replace the "т" of the 3-rd pers. plur. of the Present Tense by "щ" and add a necessary adjective ending:

Note: Only imperfective verbs can have an Active Present Participle.

(*) Note: These forms are obsolete in modern Russian and they aren't used in the spoken language as forms of the verb 'to be'.

Active Present Participle Declension

Reflexive Verbs Paradigm

The participle agrees in gender, case and number with the word it refers to:
Я посвяща́ю э́ту пе́сню лю́дям, живу́щим в на́шем го́роде – I dedicate this song to the people living in our city.
Я горжу́сь людьми́, живу́щими в на́шем го́роде – I’m proud of the people living in our city.

Active Past Participle

Active Past Participle is used in order to indicate actions that happened in the past: Де́вушка, чита́вшая тут кни́гу, забы́ла свой телефо́н – The girl, that read this book here, forgot her phone (the girl read the book in the past).

Compare: Де́вушка, чита́ющая тут кни́гу, – моя́ сестра́ – The girl reading this book here is my sister (she is reading the book now, in the present).

In order to form the Active Past Participle you should replace the infinitive ending '-ть' by the suffix '-вш-' and add an adjective ending:

Active Past Participle Declension

Reflexive Verbs Paradigm

Passive Present Participle

обсуждать – to discuss обсужда́емый – being discussed

In order to form the Passive Present Participle it’s necessary to add an adjective ending to the 1-st plural of the Present Tense:

These participles are hardly ever used in modern Russian. Normally, they are replaced by reflexive active present participles:
‘рису́ющийся’ instead of ‘рису́емый’ – being drawn, drawable
‘мо́ющийся’ instead of ‘мо́емый’ – being washed

The forms ending in ‘-омый’ are mostly obsolete. Only the forms ‘ведо́мый’ (from ‘вести́’ – to lead) and ‘иско́мый’ (from ‘иска́ть’ – to search, to look for) are used in spoken language as adjectives:
ведо́мый челове́к – a slave man
иско́мая величина́ – the unknown quantity

Passive Past Participle

сде́лать – to do/to make (perfective verb) сдела́нный – done/made

Passive Past Participles are formed by means of the suffixes ‘-нн-’ or ‘-т-’ from the infinitive stem of perfective verbs. Besides that, this kind of participle can have short forms formed by means of the suffixes ‘-н-’ or ‘-т-’:

Adverbial participle

Adverbial participles (деепричастия) are not declined, quite like usual adverbs. They inherit the aspect of their verb; imperfective ones are usually present, while perfective ones can be only past (since they denote action performed by the subject, the tense corresponds to time of action denoted by verb). Almost all Russian adverbial participles are active; to form passive constructions, adverbial participle forms of verb быть (past бывши, present будучи) may be used with either adjectival participle in instrumental case (Будучи раненным, боец оставался в строю — Combatant, being wounded, remained in the row), or short adjective in nominative (Бывши один раз наказан, он больше так не делал — Having been punished once, he didn't do it any more).

Present adverbial participles are formed by adding suffix -а/-я (sometimes -учи/-ючи which is usually deprecated) to present tense stem. Few of past participles (mainly of intransitive verbs of motion) are formed in similar manner. Most past adverbial participles are formed with suffix -в (alternative form -вши, always used before -сь), some with stem ending on consonant – with -ши. Reciprocal ones have suffix -сь at their very end (in poetry can appear as -ся).^[23][24]

Adverbial participles in standard Russian are believed to be feature of bookish speech; in colloquial language they are usually replaced with single adjectival participles or constructions with verbs: Пообедав, я пошёл гулять → Я пообедал и пошёл гулять (I had dinner and went for a walk). But in some dialects adverbial and adjectival participles are common to produce perfect forms which are not distinguished in literary Russian; e.g. "I haven't eaten today" will be "Я сегодня не евши" instead of "Я сегодня не ела".

Irregular verbs

¹These verbs all have a stem change.
²These verbs are palatalised in certain cases, namely с → ш for all the present forms of "писа́ть", and д → ж in the first person singular of the other verbs.
³These verbs do not conform to either the first or second conjugations.

Word formation

Russian has on hand a set of prefixes, prepositional and adverbial in nature, as well as diminutive, augmentative, and frequentative suffixes and infixes. All of these can be stacked one upon the other, to produce multiple derivatives of a given word. Participles and other inflectional forms may also have a special connotation. For example:

Russian has also proven friendly to agglutinative compounds. As an extreme case:

Purists (as Dmitry Ushakov in the preface to his dictionary) frown on such words. But here is the name of a street in St. Petersburg:

Some linguists have suggested that Russian agglutination stems from Church Slavonic. In the twentieth century, abbreviated components appeared in the compound:

Syntax

The basic word order, both in conversation and the written language, is subject–verb–object in transitive clauses, and free word order in intransitive clauses. However, because the relations are marked by inflection, considerable latitude in word order is allowed even in transitive clauses, and all the permutations can be used. For example, the words in the phrase "я пошёл в магазин" ('I went to the shop') can be arranged

• Я пошёл в магазин. (I went to the shop; I went to the shop.)
• Я в магазин пошёл. (I to the shop went; approx. I am going out, my destination is the shop.)
• Пошёл я в магазин. (Went I to the shop; two meanings: can be treated as a beginning of a narrated story: "Went I to the shop, and something happened." or a decision made by someone after a long contemplation: "OK, I think I will go the shop.")
• Пошёл в магазин я. (Went to the shop I; rarely used, can be treated as a beginning of a line of a poem written in amphibrach due to uncommon word order.)
• В магазин я пошёл. (To the shop I went; two meanings: can be used as a response: "I went to the shop." — "Sorry, where did you go?" — "To the shop—that’s where I went." or an emphasis on the way of transportation: I went to the shop on foot.)
• В магазин пошёл я. (To the shop went I; It was me who went to the shop.)

while maintaining grammatical correctness. Note, however, that the order of the phrase "в магазин" ("to the shop") is kept constant.

The word order can express the logical stress, and the degree of definiteness. Primary emphasis tends to be initial, with a slightly weaker emphasis at the end. Note that some of these arrangements can describe present actions, not only past (despite the fact that the verb пошёл is in the past).

Impersonal sentences

Russian is null-subject language — it allows constructing sentences without subject (Russian: безличные предложения). Some of them are disputed not to be really impersonal but to have oblique subject. One possible classification of such sentences distinguishes:^[26]

Subjectless impersonals

Such ones where no element could pretend to be a subject:

Смеркалось. 'It got dusky.'

В Москве полночь. 'It's midnight in Moscow.'

They contain an impersonal verb (which is in form of single third-person or single neutral).

Dative impersonals

Usually express personal feelings, where experiencer in dative case can possibly be considered as subject:

Мне^dat. скучно. 'I'm bored.'

Other impersonals

They have nominal element which is neither nominative nor dative, but also is a nominal verb argument:

Меня^acc. тошнит. 'I feel sick.'

Васю^acc. дёрнуло током^instr.. 'Vasya had an electrical shock.'

Negation

Multiple negatives

Unlike in standard English, multiple negatives are compulsory in Russian, as in "никто никогда никому ничего не прощает" [nʲɪkˈto nʲɪkɐɡˈda nʲɪkɐˈmu nʲɪtɕɪˈvo nʲɪ prɐɕˈɕæjɪt] ('No-one ever forgives anyone for anything' literally, "no one never to no-one nothing does not forgive"). Usually, only one word in a sentence has negative particle or prefix "не" or belongs to negative word "нет", while another words have negation-affirmative particle or prefix "ни"; but this word can often be easily omitted, and thus ни becomes the signal of negation: вокруг никого нет and вокруг никого both mean "there is nobody around".

Adverbial answers

As a one-word answer to an affirmative sentence, yes translates да and no does нет, as shown by the table below.

There is no simple rule for giving an adverbial answer to a negative sentence. B. Comrie^[27] says that in Russian answer да or нет is determined not so much by the negative form of the question as by the questioner's intent of using negation, or whether the response is in agreement with his presupposition. In many cases that means that adverbial answer should be extended for avoiding ambiguity; in spoken language, intonation of saying нет can also be significant on if it is affirmation of negation or negation of negation.

Note that while expressing an affirmation of negation by extending "да" with a negated verb is grammatically acceptable, in practice it is more common to answer "нет" and subsequently extend with a negated verb paralleling the usage in English. Also, when answering a negative sentence with a non-extended "нет" it is usually interpreted as an affirmation of negation again in a way similar to English.

Alternatively, both positive and negative simple questions easily can be answered by simply repeating the predicate with or without не, especially if да/нет is ambiguous: in the latest example, "Сержусь." or "Не сержусь."

Coordination

The most common types of coordination expressed by compound sentences in Russian are conjoining, oppositional, and separative. Additionally, the Russian grammar considers comparative, complemental, and clarifying. Other flavors of the meanings may also be distinguished.

Conjoining coordinations are formed with the help of the conjunctions "и", "да", "ни...ни" (simultaneous negation), также, тоже (the latter two have complementary flavors). Most commonly the conjoining coordination expresses enumeration, simultaneity or immediate sequence. They may also have a cause-effect flavor.

Oppositional coordinations are formed with the help of the oppositional conjunctions а, но, да, однако, зато, же, etc. They express the semantic relations of opposition, comparison, incompatibility, restriction, or compensation.

Separative coordinations are formed with the help of the separative conjunctions или, либо, ли...ли, то...то, etc., and are used to express alternation or incompatibility of things expressed in the coordinated sentences.

Complemental and clarifying coordination expresses additional, but not subordinated, information related to the first sentence.

Comparative coordination is a semantical flavor of the oppositional one.

Common coordinating conjunctions include:

• и [i] "and", enumerative, complemental;
• а [a] "and", comparative, tending to "but";
• но [no] "but", oppositional;
• ибо [ˈibə] (bookish, archaic) "for", clarifying.

The distinction between и and а is important. И implies a following complemental state that does not oppose the antecedent. А implies a following state that acts in opposition to the antecedent, but more weakly than но "but".

The Catherine manuscript of the Song of Igor, 1790s

The distinction between и and а developed after medieval times. Originally, и and а were closer in meaning. The unpunctuated ending of the Song of Igor illustrates the potential confusion. The final five words in modern spelling, князьям слава а дружине аминь [knʲɪˈzʲjam ˈslavə ə druˈʐɨnʲɪ ɐˈmʲinʲ] can be understood either as "Glory to the princes and to their host! Amen." or "Glory to the princes, and amen (R.I.P.) to their troops". Although the majority opinion is definitely with the first interpretation, there is no full consensus. The psychological difference between the two is quite obvious.

Subordination

Complementizers (subordinating conjunctions, adverbs, or adverbial phrases) include:

• если [ˈjesʲlʲɪ] 'if' (meaning 'in case where' not meaning 'whether');
• потому что [pətɐˈmu ʂtə], так как [tak kak] 'because'
• чтобы [ˈʂtobɨ], дабы [ˈdabɨ] (bookish, archaic) 'so that'
• после того, как [ˈposʲlʲɪ tɐˈvo kək] 'after'
• хотя [xɐˈtʲ ӕ] 'although'

In general, there are fewer subordinate clauses than in English, because the participles and adverbial participles often take the place of a relative pronoun/verb combination. For example:

Absolute construction

Despite the inflectional nature of Russian, there is no equivalent in the modern language to the English nominative absolute or the Latin ablative absolute construction. The old language had an absolute construction, with the noun put into the dative. Like so many other archaisms, it is retained in Church Slavonic. Among the last known examples in literary Russian occurs in Radishchev's Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (Путешествие из Петербурга в Москву [putʲɪˈʂɛstvʲɪjɪ ɪs pʲɪtʲɪrˈburɡə v mɐˈskvu]), 1790:

• Едущу мне из Едрова, Анюта из мысли моей не выходила. [ˈjeduɕːʉ mnʲe ɪzʲ jɪˈdrovə, ɐˈnʲʉtə ɪz ˈmɨsʲlʲɪ mɐˈjej nʲɪ vɨxɐˈdʲilə] "As I was leaving Yedrovo village, I could not stop thinking about Aniuta."

See also

• List of Russian language topics
• Reduplication in the Russian language

Notes

References

External links

• Interactive On-line Reference Grammar of Russian
• Wikibooks Russian
• Gramota.ru - dictionaries
• Wiktionary has word entries in Cyrillic with meanings and grammatical analysis in English
• Russian Wiktionary gives word meanings and grammatical analysis in Russian
• Russian grammar overview with practice tests
• Over 400 links to Russian Grammar articles around the Net
• Free online Russian grammar book (with videos)