verb question

[tectonic-drift.livejournal.com]

Is the verb жить an irregular verb—since it has an и stem, but it follows the first (consant) conjugation (живу, жиёшь, etc.)? Is there some other rule I am missing which offers guidance on this verb? Thanks.

Comments

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

It's живу, живёшь, etc.

Two other verbs follow this paradigm: плыть (плыву, плывёшь) and слыть (слыву, слывёшь). The и in жить is also, phonetically, [ы]. And it's part of the root, not a suffix (unlike in ходить, for example); therefore conjugation will not affect it.

The -в- seems to be a purely phonetic thing here, a kind of buffer between [ы] and [у]. If it were pronounced [и] and not [ы], [j] would be inserted, and the verb would follow the paradigm of бить and лить (бью, лью — a contraction of the original бию, лию).

[noser.livejournal.com]

"Irregular verbs" in Russian are apparently not what you think they are. жить is, incidentally, irregular, because the в disappears in the infinitive, not because of the и stem.

The correlation between the vowel preceding ть and conjugation is just a helpful rule and is only defined for verbs where the last syllable is NOT stressed. The rule is to help spelling a verb, the pronunciation of which you already know (e.g. в́идит, not в́идет), rather than to determine what conjugation is any given verb from its spelling.

For жить, the last syllable is always stressed, so it does not have to follow the conjugation rule.

[tectonic-drift.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the response. From your explanation, I gather that the infinitive alone does not provide enough information on how to conjugate the verb. It seems you also need at least two forms, the first person singular (or third person plural) and one other?

[noser.livejournal.com]

Depends. In some cases, the infinitive or one of the personal forms is enough. But for many verbs you need to know the first person singular, because it often has consonant mutation, and one of the other personal forms to figure out the conjugation.

[noser.livejournal.com]

By the way, I might have been referencing to a different conjugation rule than you have. Most of what I said still stands, though. :)