Derek Offord - Using Russian - A Guide to Contemporary Usage

Prepositions

333

10.1

Valency of prepositions

333

10.1.1 Prepositions followed by apparent nominative forms

333

10.1.2 Prepositions governing the accusative

334

10.1.3 Prepositions governing the genitive

337

10.1.4 Prepositions governing the dative

343

10.1.5 Prepositions governing the instrumental

345

10.1.6 Prepositions governing the prepositional or locative

346

10.2

Prepositional phrases based on nouns

350

10.3

Verbs followed by prepositions

350

10.3.1 Verbs followed by prepositions governing

the accusative

350

10.3.2 Verbs followed by prepositions governing the genitive

351

10.3.3 Verbs followed by prepositions governing the dative

352

10.3.4 Verbs followed by prepositions governing

the instrumental

352

10.3.5 Verbs followed by prepositions governing

the prepositional

353

10.4

Rendering of English prepositions in Russian

354

11

Syntax

377

11.1

Use of the cases

377

11.1.1 Use of the nominative

377

11.1.2 Use of the accusative

377

11.1.3 Use of case to denote animate direct object

378

ix

Contents

11.1.4 Basic uses of the genitive

380

11.1.5 Verbs governing the genitive

381

11.1.6 Case of direct object after a negated verb

382

11.1.7 Basic uses of the dative

384

11.1.8 Verbs governing the dative

386

11.1.9 Basic uses of the instrumental

388

11.1.10 Verbs governing the instrumental

388

11.1.11 Use of the prepositional

391

11.2

Use of pronouns

391

11.2.1 Use of кото´рый as a relative pronoun

391

11.2.2 Use of кaко´й and кото´рый as interrogative pronouns

392

11.2.3 Use of negative pronouns (никто´, etc.)

392

11.2.4 Use of нe´кого, etc.

393

11.2.5 Use of the particles -то, -нибу´дь, -ли´бо

393

11.2.6 Use of свой

394

11.3

Use of short adjectives

395

11.4

Use of numerals

398

11.4.1 Use of оди´н

398

11.4.2 Use of numerals higher than one in nominative/

accusative 398

11.4.3 Use of numerals in oblique cases

399

11.4.4 Use of numerals with animate direct object

399

11.4.5 Use of collective numerals

400

11.4.6 Approximation

401

11.4.7 Agreement of predicate with a subject containing a

cardinal numeral

401

11.4.8 Translation of years and people after numerals

402

11.4.9 Distributive expressions

402

11.4.10 Time

403

11.4.11 Dates

404

11.4.12 Distance

404

11.4.13 Nouns expressing number

405

11.5

Use of aspects

405

11.5.1 Basic distinction between the aspects

405

11.5.2 Effect of adverbial modifiers

406

11.5.3 Use of aspect in the indicative

406

11.5.4 Use of aspect in the infinitive

408

11.5.5 Use of aspect in negative constructions

409

11.5.6 Use of aspect in the imperative

410

11.6

Problems in choice of tense

411

11.7

Use of verbs of motion

412

11.8

Use of reflexive verbs

413

11.9

The conditional mood

415

11.10

The subjunctive mood

416

11.11

Use of gerunds and participles

418

11.11.1 Use of gerunds

418

11.11.2 Use of active participles

419

11.11.3 Use of present passive participles

419

x

Contents

11.11.4 Use of past passive participles

419

11.12

Conjunctions

420

11.12.1 Coordinating conjunctions

420

11.12.2 Subordinating conjunctions

422

11.12.3 Subordinating conjunctions used in R1 or R3

423

11.13

Syntactic features of colloquial speech

424

11.14

Word order

425

11.15

Punctuation

428

11.16

Use of capital letters

432

12

Stress

433

12.1

Introductory remarks

433

12.2

Stress in nouns

433

12.2.1 Masculine nouns

434

12.2.2 Feminine nouns

438

12.2.3 Neuter nouns

440

12.2.4 Irregular stress in certain prepositional singular forms

442

12.2.5 Prepositions that attract stress in certain phrases

443

12.3

Stress in adjectives

443

12.4

Stress in verbs

444

12.4.1 Stress in first-conjugation verbs

444

12.4.2 Stress in second-conjugation verbs

445

12.4.3 Stress in past-tense forms

447

12.4.4 Stress in gerunds and participles

449

12.4.5 Miscellaneous points

452

12.5

Variation in stress

452

Index of Russian words, phrases and affixes

455

General index

487

xi

Preface to the first edition

This book, like the volumes already published in the series on

contemporary usage in French, German and Spanish, is aimed at the

advanced learner who has studied the basic grammar of the language

and is now striving for a more comprehensive and sophisticated

knowledge. To this end the book includes much material on register,

vocabulary, verbal etiquette and word-formation, as well as material on the subjects of morphology, prepositions and syntax with which the

post-A-level student should already have some familiarity. The book is not conceived as a comprehensive grammar, although the main

grammatical topics that trouble the English-speaking student are quite fully covered in the later chapters. The approach adopted is not

prescriptive. That is to say an attempt is made to show the range of linguistic phenomena that might be encountered in modern Russian

and to define the limits within which they are used rather than to lay down rules for usage.

While offering, it is hoped, a multi-faceted view of the modern

language, two purposes are kept in mind throughout the book.

Firstly, it is intended to demonstrate that Russian, like any other

modern language with which the student may be familiar, is not a

stable, uniform abstraction that is applied inflexibly in all situations. As a living language spoken by millions of individuals of different ages from different backgrounds and in different situations, Russian exists in many varieties. Words, forms and constructions which are appropriate in one context may be quite out of place in another. Even apparently hard-and-fast grammatical rules may be relaxed, to the frustration of the foreign student who has laboriously mastered them. Chapter 1

therefore aims to make the student aware of the existence of variety in the Russian language, and this variety is borne in mind and examples of it indicated in all the chapters that follow.

Secondly, the book attempts to address problems that the

English-speaking student of Russian may find especially taxing.

Russian operates, of course, according to quite different grammatical principles from those to which the English-speaker is accustomed.

(One thinks in particular of its system of declension of nouns,

pronouns, adjectives, numerals and participles and of the aspectual

distinction that runs through the Russian verbal system.) Moreover, in the field of vocabulary correspondences between Russian and English

words are often limited or inexact and similarities can be misleading.

Again, in certain situations Russians simply do not express themselves in the same way as English-speakers in a similar situation, or at least a direct translation of what an English-speaker would say in that situation would seem to a Russian to some degree unnatural. Much attention is

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