double prepositional genitive?

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Does this patterns sound good to a native speaker?
У меня у сестры двое детей. = My sister has got two children.
This is the so-called 'double prepositional genitive', the colloquial pattern, whose more literary correspondence is У моей сестры двое детей.
one more example:
У меня у друга украли сумку. (i.e. a bag was stolen from a friend, not from me)
I was told that this construction should be avoided because it sounds 'silly'. Is that true?



 

Comments

[jojoza.livejournal.com]

It's true.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Does it sound natural? or would you be surprised if you hear someone say this?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It sounds very natural, but only in a way. By saying that, the speaker admits that he is, more or less, an illiterate low-life redneck :)

[nugae.livejournal.com]

when i'm too much in a hurry to use my brains i use this construction)

it really sounds funny but that's how the proper threads appear in my head

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

People who object to such colloquialisms usually fail miserably when trying to produce genuine literary language. Don't listen to them. "У меня у сестры" is darned good vernacular Russian, quaintly elegant in its own right.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

What is highlife after all?
Would you say that it's standard spoken Russian? Or is it totally substandard?

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Does it sound quaint?

[poombas-sister.livejournal.com]

It's just normal. Everyone will understand you. A lot of people say so. And no one will think that you're silly.=)) But you should understand that in written speech such construction looks quite illiterate.

[predicata.livejournal.com]

It sounds natural in the middle of a conversation and rather means "...and as for me, my sister has got etc." This form is more accented to speaker's point of view. But it is definitely illiteral.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Somehow, it does when you're paying attention, and it sounds quite normal when you aren't. Colloquial Russian often sounds like a totally ungrammatical jumble of words (while in fact it's shifting towards a syntax of its own, one that's vaguely reminiscent, I think, of Japanese).

[khathi.livejournal.com]

I'd not say so. Modern literate Russian is highly syntetic language, not unlike Japanese, while colloquial use shifts more to analytical direction, like Chinese or English.

[salexey.livejournal.com]

I seem to be the only one for whom this phrase is not natural :) Okay, it's natural in conversation but it's betteк and more correct to say "У моей сестры...".

[salexey.livejournal.com]

Constructions like "У меня у сестры, у меня у друга, у меня у кого-либо еще" are often to see in internet but in my opinion they sound silly.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

In German there are similar colloquialisms, and some of the remarks concerning those who use them (semi-literate, country-bumpkin, etc.) could also apply. But, like one colleague said, these are examples of natural speech habits. If you deal with companies that have offices in relatively remote areas, what will strike you is that these sort of "illiterate patterns" are more or less the norm. In contrast, literary German will seem unnatural and out of place. 

There are a few books on the subject. A popular one is, "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastian_Sick)".

It's important to remember that if you're surrounded by people who use such patterns, then you're going to stick out by not going along. A poignant example of this is from an autobiography by Ernst Toller (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller) (who participated in a post-WWI attempt to establish a socialist republic in Bavaria). The wanted persons bulletin issued on him has listed among his peculiarities "speaks literary German". :) I suspect the same may hold true for "literary Russian" to some degree in some places.

[ceiteach.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of the answers, it's natural but illiterate. I think that comes as parallel to "у нас в университете", "у меня на работе", "у меня в городе", "у меня дома", ... We just begin thinking in the same way and realize too late that this construction doesn't work properly in the situation. So better avoid it but it's not to worry if you once let out something of the sort.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

No, this is no standard Russian. This is the "lemme gitcha dat dere" type of speak. Very rural, very illiterate.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Ah, rural is not always illiterate.
Rural types of speech are not inferior to urban. But the mixture of the rural and the standard might be. I think it's some sort of patois and not a genuine dialect form.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Anyways, rural doesn't mean bad, by any means. Troubles start with a mixture of rural and standard elements. I think this double genitive model is not rural but it's some kind of patois.
Standard language may be much worse and unnatural as it's always subject to current politics. For example, the well-known Russian dictionary by Ozhegov mustn't be used as it represents the language in its most bureaucratic communist-biased form.

[jojoza.livejournal.com]

у нас в университете
у меня на работе
у меня дома
у меня в городе

vs

у меня у сестры
у меня у отца
у меня у бабушки
у меня у кошки

- don't you see a difference?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Call it patois if it fits with your theory. The fact is, it sounds natural but illiterate :)

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Agree. Rural does not mean bad. Also, the city has its own sets of substandard language forms. London Cockney comes to mind here.

I think it helps to remember that "standards" are always arbitrary and tend to reflect power distribution in a society.

For example, High German is today the accepted standard and Low German is (generally) considered substandard. In fact, this came about as a result of Austria's defeat by Prussia. So, it is a political development. Linguistically speaking, the Austrian version of German precedes modern High German. Up to this day, some forms of Southern German enjoy equal acceptance with the otherwise Northern standard.

Hence, spoken literary German tends to be identified with northerners. So, if, as in the case of Toller, you only spoke literary German in Bavaria at the beginning the last century, you would either be identified as a northerner, a foreigner, or some other kind of misfit.

Often, one can find older, more natural and more genuine forms of the language preserved in dialects. (Interestingly, colonial populations cut off from the motherland tend to preserve older forms of the language. For example, the U.S. "gotten" is an older form of the British "got".)

Can't say whether the double genitive in Russian is a patois or genuine dialect form. But I suppose its use is sufficiently prevalent to enjoy some degree of acceptance.

Similar cases exist in English. For example, the rule is one may not use "if" and "would" in the same clause, e.g. "If I would". Nonetheless, the use of this "patois" is fairly widespread.

I think politically biased dictionaries are the rule. We're all biased. The only question is whose bias dominates.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Japanese is not synthetic. It's agglutinative.

Besides, we are talking syntax, not morphology.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Most linguists, IIRC, consider agglutinative languages to be a type of synthetic ones.

Besides, in analytical languages syntax mostly takes place of morphology.