(no subject)

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if there was a post about this earlier, I didn't feel like going through months of livejournal looking for something that might not exist.

I am a native Russian speaker but I only went to a Russian school through 6th grade, so I know how to speak it properly but I'm not great with the proper names for cases, particles, speech parts, etc. So I'm teaching my boyfriend Russian and him being an English major he wants to know the structure thoroughly, and I have been having a few problems explaining why certain things are the way they are.

Anyway, my question is, what's a good way to explain the word "бы"? First he wouldn't believe me when I said that it has nothing to do with "быть". Now he won't believe me when I say it is not a verb, (because he keeps thinking of the English "would"), and I can't think of what part of speech it actually is, and how to explain the usage.

Please help.

P.S. I love this community.

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Tell him it's a particle.
(I am not quite sure it has nothing to do with быть, but we'd better leave that out for now, to make things simpler.)

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

i just looked on multitran.ru, it says it's a preposition, which doesn't make any sense. ack!

[oryx_and_crake]

It's definitely NOT a preposition.
You probably have been looking for translation of предлог, while бы is a частица.

[letnja-kisha.livejournal.com]

Hey,

So, actually, "бы" *is* related to "быть". "бы" used to be a form of "быть", and it used to be a verb form exactly parallel to English "would" (and there were different forms for different persons - for "I", "you", etc). However, what happened is that all the forms for all persons became the same ("бы") and "бы" became a particle expressing conditional, instead of a verb expressing conditional.

I don't know the exact old Russian forms, but I think they are largely similar to Serbian forms, the Serbian forms would be:

ја бих прочитао (ја бих прочитала) = "я бы прочитал (я бы прочитала)"
ти би прочитао (ти би прочитала) = "ты бы прочитал (ты бы прочитала)"
он би прочитао = "он бы прочитал"
она би прочитала = "она бы прочитала"
ми бисмо прочитали = "мы бы прочитали"
ви бисте прочитали = "вы бы прочитали"
они би прочитали = "они бы прочитали"

So you see the exact parallelness of the Serbian and Russian verb forms, except that in Serbian бы (би) is a real verb, and in Russian it became a particle.

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

hey,
that was incredibly helpful! thank you so much, that makes a lot of sense now.

[letnja-kisha.livejournal.com]

Glad it helped :-)

Aorist

[solito.livejournal.com]

Well, technically speaking "бы" is a conjugated form of the verb быть - in the ancient Russian there was a special passive tense named "аорист" (the second vowel is stressed here - аОрист). The forms of aorist for "быть" ("быти" in ancient Russian) were "быхъ", "бысть/бы", "бысть/бы", "быхомъ", "бысте", "быша" for я, ты, он, мы, вы, они respectively. This tense was used to describe an action in the past that was completed in the past and does not have consequencies now, i.e. it's a form of past preterit tense. Later the aorist almost completely disappeared in the language, and "бы" remains one of the very few signs of it in the contemporary Russian. It is not linked with the past preterit nowadays, for a number of reasons (which can be found in some academic grammar works) it started to mean subjunctive form.

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Would, could, and should are not verbs in English, either. They're particles, just like in Russian. Spanish is an example of a language in which could and should are *not* particles, but verbs (conjugated in order to mean should instead of shall or could instead of can): they've got the verbs poder and deber, and I can't remember what they use for would.

So, if that helps you explain it at all, there you go.

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

I don't claim to be an English expert, my boyfriend just said they are modal verbs. He's in a grammar class right now. I'm not claiming anything here, just saying what he said. But thanks.

[yms.livejournal.com]

hmm... So, is can a particle too? It doesn't conjugate either. "I can do", "he can do" etc.

[ja-va.livejournal.com]

It is very close to "would", if not the same.
I can't think of the situation when I could not translate one as the other, honestly.

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Well, modal verb is a pretty good description for them, too, I suppose.

I'm not actually an expert on English grammar. I study natural language processing (computer algorithms for translation and processing of English, Spanish, etc).

=P

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Yes. My understanding is that can is the present indicative particle, and could is past or something similar.

The interpretation of can/could as a verb probably comes from the fact that you use a verb when you switch to the future tense: "to be able to." So, he can walk, or he will be able to walk. Some people say that the infinitive of can is "to be able to," but that's really just a modern interpretation of a structure that doesn't fit into normal English grammar.

Re: Aorist

[kart.livejournal.com]

whoa... cool :)

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

I hate to be a hypocrite... I hated it when there was this long thread about Japanese in this community... But actually, could and should (in THIS sense) are not verbs. Those fall under the subjunctive, conditional, and mood categories.

Be careful... this is the mistake you're making.

Could - I could go to the fair, so I did. This is the verb form of could - past tense of "can".

Could - I could go to the fair if I had money. This is not the verb form.

Poder - "to be able to, can"
Deber - "should, must"
Adding -ía to the end of the word makes it a verb (therefore, there is no verb "would", rather it is a conjugation of the verb).

Irías tu conmigo a la tienda? Would you go to the store with me?

[aciel.livejournal.com]

We're arguing the same side.

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

can, could, shall, should, may, might, will, and would are auxiliary modal verbs. they express ability, premission, possibility, necessity, prediction, etc.
they are not particles. particles in english are words like "up" in the phrase "caught up in the moment." it's not used as a preposition; it's part of the verb phrase, but it's still not a verb.

[aciel.livejournal.com]

I like your explanation better than mine. I stand corrected. Thank you.