Russian anomalies in stress and gender

[mrsincerity.livejournal.com]

Hey all,

Could someone please provide me with some examples of nouns that can have more than one stress in the nominative with no change in meaning? For example, творог 'curd' can have the stress fall on either vowel with no change in meaning.

Also, can someone please provide me with examples of words that can decline for more than one gender? For example, колибри 'himmingbird' can be either masculine or feminine.

I would really appreciate any help I can get. I've studied Russian but am primarily a linguist and am working on a project for a Russian linguistics class comparing how dictionaries present anomalies in nominals, but, because my inexperience in Russian, I'm having a hard time actually finding anomalies!

Spasiba!

Comments

[avoider.livejournal.com]

all words of masculine gender that mean profession can also mean female person with that profession like учитель (он, она), доктор and so on

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

That's meaning and not grammar.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

nouns don't decline for more than one gender. they can REFER to more than one gender. the example you gave - колибри -is indeclinable. avoider's examples, like учитель, врач, etc, will be substituted by corresponding pronouns (he or she) and will take the corresponding past tense verb form- masculine or feminine: Пришел врач. Он - опытный врач. Пришла врач. Она - опытный врач.

floating stress

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

floating stress: барж и бржа, дебаркдер и дебаркадр, договр и дговор, индустря и индстрия, лыжн и лжня, металлргия и металлургя, обнаружние и обнаржение, бух и обх, петл и птля, склдчина и складчна, творг и тврог

from here (http://slovari.gramota.ru/portal_sl.html?gorb_about.htm), though some of the forms are IMHO borderline abnormal.

as for the gender, Russian nouns do not decline "in gender", they decline according to one of the three standard declination models. some nouns can assume either masculine or feminine gender, e.g. староста, сирота, but this doesn't change their declination model.

Re: floating stress

[megilla.livejournal.com]

some professional misplacements of stress
алкогОль - Алкоголь (medical men)
возбужденО - возбУждено (policemen about criminal case)

[xalabuda.livejournal.com]

i was taught that творог is the single word in russian with two possible stresses(i"d better say with two stresses at the same moment,but how it should be pronounced i don't know)) i say твОрог).
about words that can decline for more than one gender - the words,that express some character features or someth like that:
плакса - who cries a lot (Какой/какая ты пласка!)
лежебока - lazy person,who likes to lie on a couch
грязнуля - who is always dirty or who soils everything
зануда - boring person (Надоел/а этот/эта зануда)
and others.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I thought I had been wrong for years with no one correcting me for saying твОрог when I saw in a beginning textbook I was teaching from that it should be 'твoрOг'.

[ceiteach.livejournal.com]

Well, what about свеклА and свЁкла? Maybe there is a norm for it but it seems, people are not aware. I am not aware either.

[oryx_and_crake]

свеклА is wrong. As well as дОговор, лЫжня, металлУргия, обнарУжение, складчИна (from the list posted above), мЫшление, нАчать (favoured by Gorbachev), авторА, договорА etc.

[ceiteach.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's nice to hear, for I prefer свёкла:)

[kegarawashii.livejournal.com]

mistakes of this kind result from our writing an e letter for both е and ё. that is how новорождённый became новорОжденный.

мЫшление

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

don't be so fast, look at more than one dictionary.

[mrsincerity.livejournal.com]

Allow me to rephrase: are there any words that can take modifiers that decline for more than one declential model? For example, мой кофе ~ мое кофе (although I think now it generally only takes masculine modifiers?).

Thanks for all the input so far!

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Pleasure seeing you here, Miles. Guess who? I'll give you a hint: Petersburg.

Anywho, to help out, kofe only takes masculine, kafe is neuter. And apart from kolibri, which sounds an awful lot like the Spanish word for hummingbird, I've never heard of an inanimate noun (i.e. not a noun that defines a person) that can take both genders.

How's Canada? Alice? You?

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

HA! кофе has now become neuter, and I hear Академия наук has even succumbed and allowed it to be neuter!

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Are you KIDDING ME!? This whole time, I ALWAYS thought kofe was neuter until LITERALLY 5 months ago, and that realization was devastating. It took me a while to rewire the inner workings of my brain for it to accept it as masculine. And now it's neuter again!? Akh, zhizn'.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Yep. And to add insult to injury, this decision was made in 1972, IIRC! So for 35 years already "кофе" can be BOTH masculine and neuter, but it seems that still nobody learned that.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

It seems I learn more internet slang from Russians than I do from Americans. What's IIRC?

[khathi.livejournal.com]

If I Remember Correctly.

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

The important thing is those variants are not all acceptable. Using кофе as neuter sounds slightly undereducated and out of zhuzh's list I believe only those stress variants are correct:
бАржа, дебаркАдер, договОр, индустрИя, лыжнЯ, металлургИя, обнаружЕние, Обух, петлЯ, склАдчина (but творог is accented both ways indeed; I prefer творОг).

[oryx_and_crake]

+1

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delly_/]

+1

Most of the variants listed are incorrect.

If you are looking for words that can be pronounced with two variants of stress _in accordance with the rules of the language_ and not because some people do not know where the stress falls, these are твОрог-творОг, мышлЕние-мЫшление, инАче-Иначе (it's not a nown, so I believe, it won't help too much), рожЕница - роженИца, апоплЕксия - апоплексИя (professional), тандЕм - тАндем (the dictionary has it, though the second variant is not spread at all), тЕфтели - тефтЕли. If I recall some more - I'll continue the list.

As for words like свеклА, дОговор, квАртал and so on - those are incorrect pronounciations. Some linguists actually say that дОговор is likely to become a part of the norm, but it's too early to say so.

[oryx_and_crake]

I believe Иначе, мЫшление, тЕфтели are wrong too (the last, however, may be a part of professional slang which makes it partly acceptable, it still sounds awful though).

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delly_/]

Try to check those in any contemporary dictionary, you'll see they are allowed by the norm, and even no "colloquial" mark is given next to them. Sounds awful to me to, however.

[botanik1.livejournal.com]

Виолончель (cello) these days is of the feminine gender (нет виолончели). But apparently it wasn't always so - in the 19th century Chaikovsky used it in the masculine(нет виолончеля). Somewhere along the way, possibly under the growing influence of the double bass, people came to believe that the notes vиолончель produced were just too high for it to be considered masculine.