Гордость вологжан

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Dear Community,

Here another sentence for your review. Could you please explain why "общественного предприятия" and "гордости вологжан" are in the genitive? I can't seem to find the reasoning for this.

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный — это было традицией — жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки — тоже общественного предприятия, тоже гордости вологжан.

Thank you.

ФБ

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

they both stand in the same case as Городской публичной библиотеки which they describe

[pzrk.livejournal.com]

"в фонд [кого? чего?] библиотеки" - "библиотеки" is in genitive case, so "предприятия" and "гордости" are.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

OK, I could follow this reasoning for:

в книжный фонд...общественного предприятия - The book collection of the public enterprise

But what is this supposed to mean:
в книжный фонд...гордости вологжан - The book collection of the pride of the citizens of Vologda?

How does the Russian mind make sense of this?

[crystal-cold.livejournal.com]

The book collection in this sentence is the pride of the citizens of Vologda. They proud of it.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Yes. That is precisely my point. I know they are proud of the book collection. So why does "гордость" have to be in the genitive? That's the part I don't get.

Or is it that Russians look at this as: "The book collection of my pride"? In which case, it literally is "The book collection of the pride of the citizens of Vologda". Couldn't do that in English, but in an abstract meaning it makes sense. Will take some getting used to, though. Thanks.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

could you give a version in Russian of the sentence which would be more logic from your point of view? Maybe if we compare it with the original sentence it will be more easy to explain.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

OK. I'll give you a literal translation, just so you see how I take it literally:

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный — это было традицией — жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки — тоже общественного предприятия, тоже гордости вологжан.

Every departing exile - as per tradition - donated his always huge library to the book collection of the City Public Library - which was also a community enterprise and also the pride of the citizens of Vologda.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

And here's my Russian "version":

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный — это было традицией — жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки — тоже общественное предприятие, тоже гордость вологжан.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

OK, now let us think for a while :)

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

*Your* Russian "version" appears common sensical to me. The original, I think is a purer "Russian". Your new version may reflect the infuence of Anglo-Saxon thought :-)

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный — это было традицией — жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки — тоже общественное предприятие, тоже гордость вологжан.

I think that the answer lays in a fact that BOTH variants are possible. It depends on WHAT is the pride of citizens of Vologda. :)

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный жертвовал библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской библиотеки — тоже гордость вологжан.

It means that people donated books to the fund and IT was the pride.

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный жертвовал библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской библиотеки — тоже гордости вологжан.

In this sentence it is meant that the LIBRARY was the pride.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Каждый уезжающий ссыльный жертвовал библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской библиотеки — тоже гордости вологжан.

In this sentence it is meant that the LIBRARY was the pride.

Well, with your interpretation, I guess I can kind of understand your grammar logic. Thank you.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

I think that for complete understanding you need only too examples.

каждый жертвовал в фонд/библиотеку - тоже гордость вологжан.
каждый жертвовал в фонд библиотекИ - тоже гордостИ вологжан.

of course, all of this is not simple for us too :). From my point of view the sentence you cited is quite clumsy :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Following the grammatical logic of your version, we discover that it is "somebody's always large library" that is the "Vologda citizens' pride" here, not the City Public Library, while the grammatical logic of the original sentence implies that it is the City Public Library that is the Vologda citizens' pride.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

Yes, you understand it right.
But, you know, the problem is that the sentence is quite complicated (and one may say that it is not quite OK in sense of syntax – to many dashes in one sentence), so let’s simplify it. I am not sure that everybody understands WHAT exactly you find strange in the sentence.

Каждый жертвует книгу в фонд библиотеки (тоже гордости вологжан).

What is wrong with the sentence from your point of view? How YOU would say it in RUSSIAN?

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Каждый жертвует книгу в фонд библиотеки (тоже гордость вологжан)

This is how I would think to phrase it:

Каждый жертвует книгу в фонд библиотеки - тоже гордость вологжан

Strange for me is the "concept" of 'pride' as a genitive in this context.

To me it seems that: "the book collection of the library is the pride of the citizens of Vologda" is how it should read.

As it stands, it looks to me like: "the book collection of the library of the pride of the citizens of Vologda" is how Russians see it.

As I said, if that's the way you do it in Russian, then that's just something one will simply get used to.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

Каждый жертвует книгу в фонд библиотеки - тоже гордость вологжан

As I wrote it is correct if the fund is the pride of citizens.
To simplify it further we should say ‘каждый жертвует в фонд – гордость вологжан’

You can also say ‘каждый жертвует в библиотеку – гордость вологжан’

But in the sentence ‘каждый жертвует в фонд библиотеки’ - ‘библиотеки’ is a genitive connected with the word ‘фонд’ and a question is what is the pride. It is obvious that the library in general is the pride of citizens (not the fund – who cares for funds) so in this case you have to agree the case of the apposition (‘гордости вологжан’) with ‘библиотеКИ’.
ГородосТИ.


To me it seems that: "the book collection of the library is the pride of the citizens of Vologda" is how it should read.

No, in the context the LIBRARY is the pride.

As I said, if that's the way you do it in Russian, then that's just something one will simply get used to.

No, no, it is a pure grammar and your variant ‘каждый жертвует в фонд – гордость вологжан’ is, again, quite correct. In those cases everything is determined by the rules on appositions. It should be agreed with the corresponding word of the main sentence.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Yes. I see your point. In any case, when one bears in mind that it is the libray that is the pride of the citizens, then the dynamics of the sentence change and I suppose the use of the genitive facilitates this. Again. Thank you.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

But, literally, it does seem that you phrase this in Russian as: "the book collection of the library of the pride of the citizens of Vologda". Looks like a matryoshka :-)

Indeed, this does indicate that it is the library that is the pride, i.e. the library of the pride (as in the pride of my heart). Again, the difficulty for me was what I see as a very unusual way of formulating a relationship between "pride" and its object. In any case, I see now how Russians justify their thinking on this and that is good enough for me.

[bayukov.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that matryoshka is a good example :)
There are four things which should be organized.

1. his huge library
2. the book collection
3. City Public Library
4. The pride of the citizens.

They indeed can be put like matryoshka

Every departing exile donated his huge library to the book collection which is a part of the City Public Library which is the pride of the citizens :)

However, the original sentence is more close to something like this:

Every departing exile donated his always huge library to the City Public Library’s book collection - which was also the pride of the citizens of Vologda.
Каждый уезжающий ссыльный жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки — которая тоже была гордостью вологжан.

In the Russian sentence you can say what was the pride by the feminine ending of ‘которая’.

But in a sentence like
‘Каждый жертвовал библиотеку в фонд областного отдела КГБ, который тоже был гордостью горожан’
you cannot say from the grammatical construction what was the pride – the book collection itself or the KGB department which has such a collection. The sentence is equivocal in this sense.

And, once again, in the grammatical construction in the cited example you have another opportunity to show to what part of our matryoshka we put ‘гордость вологжан’. Since it has the same case as ‘библиотеки’ it belongs to it.

[gauchette.livejournal.com]

this is not a genetive of "of" :)
this is just a corellation between библиотека and предприятие, гордость.
so the leaving one was giving his books away for the fond of library, and it's genetive as you see. but "library" is holding another part of sentence on it, about pride and so on, so the whole part is supposed to be concorded with the single word it's bound to. it's like parts of composite sentences play a role of an attribute.
sorry for my english :)

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

I guess the point is that it is not the book collection that is the pride of the citizens of Vologda, but rather the library that is their pride. In which case, I think I can better grasp your grammar logic. Thank you.

[semicolor.livejournal.com]

"Городской публичной библиотеки", "общественного предприятия", "гордости вологжан" are not synonymic expressions, you do not need them to substitute one for the other, but to explain and convey the importance of library. I think this just needs more context.
"Третья Вологда организовала народные читальни, библиотеки, кружки, кооперативы, министерства, фабрики. Каждый уезжающий ссыльный - это было традицией – жертвовал свою, всегда огромную, библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки – тоже общественного предприятия, тоже гордости вологжан."

"Городская публичная библиотека" is "общественное предприятие" and "гордость вологжан" just like the institutions listed in the previous sentence.
And here you put them in the same case for the sake of congruence. Otherwise the sentence would be grammatically incorrect.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Thanks. However, I don't think the additional context changes anything. I mean, the sentence stands by itself or not at all.

The question is not to what degree "Городская публичная библиотека", "общественное предприятие", "гордость вологжан" are institutions. And the matter of their congruence or not is also not under discussion.

What's relevant here is the mechanism by which one apparently gets constructions such as "в книжный фонд...гордости вологжан" and "в книжный фонд...гордости вологжан". This is the single issue, I think, that requires focus.

[semicolor.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I must have put what I wanted to say not clear enough.

As I take it, you seem to be in err here:
But what is this supposed to mean:
в книжный фонд...гордости вологжан - The book collection of the pride of the citizens of Vologda?

There are no such constructions as "в книжный фонд...гордости вологжан" in the sentence in question - nor such constructions are implied, either. These three are in same case for the reason explained here (http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/640423.html?thread=9848487#t9848487).

[pzrk.livejournal.com]

This long sentence consists of (and even can be splitted to) parts with each of them having their own meaning:
1. "Каждый ссыльный жертвовал библиотеку в книжный фонд"
2. "Книжный фонд был общественным предприятием"
3. "Это общественное предприятие было предметом гордости вологжан"

More than 3 levels of enclosure are hard to understand and, therefore, are rarely used.

[markushka.livejournal.com]

That's what I wanted to tell...

"Каждый уезжающий ссыльный по традиции жертвовал библиотеку в книжный Фонд Городской публичной библиотеки, который, как и библиотека в целом, был государственным предприятием, являвявшимся гордостью вологжан".

И волки сыты, и овцы целы... Dashes looks ugly... Double "тоже" also.

Moreover, it's not required to highlight that Public Library is a state enterprise - it's obvious for Soviet Russia. Fund as a part of library cannot be private, that obvious too.

I think that the Russian text should be edited and corrected if it's a journal article or some kind of masterpiece. If it's a memoir - nothing to say, it's usual for that kind of text to be sample of bad style and hardly understandable logic...

[markushka.livejournal.com]

Ops. I see. It's not quite later days Soviet Russia. It's a beginning and/or pre-Soviet Russia.

So, it's not a modern style Russian language.

[igorborisov.livejournal.com]

2. "Книжный фонд был общественным предприятием" - How book collection of library can be self-dependend enterprise? It's integral part of library.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

those phrases sre in the same case as the phrase they modify:
Публичная библиотека - общественное предприятие, гордость вологжан
Он подарил книгу Публичной библиотеке - общественному предприятию, гордости вологжан
Он рассказал нам о Публичной библиотеке - общественном предприятии, гордости вологжан
Семинар проводится Публичной библиотекой - общественным предприятием, гордостью вологжан

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Yes, this makes sense. Thanks. I guess the deeper point is that the logic of Russian grammar almost invariably takes precedent over the logic of common sense. I've got to watch out for that.

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

just an aside: common sense is cultural, of course, and your common sense is the common sense of the logic of the English language

if it is a matter of interest...

[rower.livejournal.com]

to keep it simple, just take those dashes (in the very first sentence) as equal signs. and then you will get that "stright connection" which ljuser zhp is showing in his examples.

simplyfying (i hope so) the first sentence we will get -
Каждый уезжающий ссыльный (, это было традицией =) жертвовал свою всегда огромную библиотеку в книжный фонд Городской публичной библиотеки = тоже общественного предприятия,(=) тоже гордости вологжан.

see - if the first half of the sentence is OK for you - then we are told, that the State Library (in whole) is a public enterprise (тоже means, that there was another public enterprise already mentioned), and it (library) is a pride of citizens (and also, there was something already mentioned as a (citizens pride").

every leaving cityzen (did a thing) that was a tradition - donated his huge collection of books to funds of State Public Library, which (library) was also a public enterprise and also was a pride of citizens. (фонд чего = чего, чего)

commenting the next comment (about culture) - there is nearely no flexing of nouns in english, except for genitive and plural (which is really NO flexing, comparing to 7 flexes in latvian or 9 (yes, 9) in russian. or 17+ in finnish, which is really a lot.), and that might be the reason, why you are thying to use nominative forms. still, you have to keep comments in the same form as the commented (addited?) word - either noun or verb. (compare - every word has to be the same form - either it's a noun or a werb) using the nominative forms (or other misflexed forms) is considered a mistake. i guess, it's even called misflexing, or smth :)