По

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

In another post, somebody used по in a sense I'm not familiar with, as Кто Эдуард по профессии? meaning "What's Edward's job?" I think I got a bit confused with the prefix по- against the preposition по.

Ok, bear with me a moment here. This is what I get so far.

The по- construction (with hyphen) means "in the way of", or at least that's the most general way of expressing it in English. It also seems to do weird things to the following word, so we get по-русски not по-русскому (по русскому would mean "in the opinion of a Russian", right?) and по-мОему "my way" vs. по моемУ "according to my (something)". It's more like a prefix than a preposition.

По without the hyphen is a real preposition taking the dative case whether it's used literally, meaning "along", or figuratively, meaning "according to", or something like "in the sense of" ("Who are you according to your beliefs" would mean in English, to me at least "Who do you believe you are" and not "What are your beliefs".) But you might say "По моим убежениям, Бога нет" (if you were an atheist).

How about "по X" = "as far as X is concerned", as in:

Кто Эдуард по профессии? = "Who is Edward, as far as his job is concerned?"
По национальности я русский = "As far as nationality is concerned, I'm Russian."
По прогнозу синоптиков сегодня будет дождь = "As far as the weather forecast is concerned, it's going to rain today"

It sounds awkward, but then we don't use that construction in English, so any attempt to describe it is going to sound awkward.

(Edit to explain the background)

Comments

[tlkh.livejournal.com]

In the last example (По прогнозу синоптиков сегодня будет дождь), "по" has different meaning - "according to"

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

That's kind of my point. My problem is that, being a computer programmer who's interested in languages, I tend to approach these things as problems in computational linguistics. I'm looking for a single English expression that captures both meanings. In colloquial English, "as far as I'm concerned" means the same as "in my opinion" e.g. "As far as I'm concerned, Gordon Brown should be made to walk the plank." (I'm afraid I don't really know how to talk like a pirate in Russian, so I'll leave the translation as an exercise for the reader.)

You can often "map" Russian onto English surprisingly well this way; you tend to come up with an expression that no native English speaker would ever actually say, but that makes perfect sense if you look at it kind of sideways ;)

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

As a native Russian speaker, I wouldn't translate "to walk the plank", 'cause there's no equal expression in Russian...
In fact, there are lots of expressions/words that find no equivalent in two languages. For example, all the English phrasal verbs - there's no such concept in Russian. And it is not about one single word having no equivalent, it's about the hole concept!

However, it seems you've got everything right about "по профессии". But this meaning of "по" is not the most common. It's only used with profession, nationality, religion and may be translated roughly as "by". Just imagine some selection query from the database: query by profession. So the translation may look like asking a person "who are you by profession/nationality/religion/area of expertise?"
As it looks like a query from some list of possible options.

[oryx_and_crake]

I'm looking for a single English expression that captures both meanings.
----
You'll never find one. Not just for "по" but for most other words as well. Languages do not work that way. Every word has a "nest" of meanings, and for any given Russian word you'll never find an English word whose nest of meanings will be 100% the same.

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm familiar with the hyphenated spelling по-русскому.

No, I meant that to be meaningless. OK, so по- with hyphen is a prefix that turns adjectives into adverbs with a specific meaning, "in the way of X". It can change the following adjective: some undergo a stress change; as far as I can make out, relative adjectives in -й (русский, волчий) lose the й after по-, so you get for example: С волками жить, по-волчи быть.

По without the hyphen is a preposition, and doesn't take an adjective except as far as the adjective is standing in for a noun or a noun is understood, as in your example with по русскому (языку). Apart from the literal sense of "along" it takes a variety of closely related meanings along the lines of "according to", "by", "in the sense of". "As far as X is concerned" is still the best I can do to express them all in one English construction, although your school subjects example stresses that pretty much to the breaking point, thanks ;)

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

С пиратами жить, по-пиратски говорить? :)

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

You got it!

One minor thing: it's "по-волчьи" (because of the "ч", if I'm not mistaken).

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

So it is, thanks! I googled "по-волчи" and got lots of hits, so I assumed I was right ... apparently people make spelling mistakes on the Internet, can you imagine? :)

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

No, I figured it out, I think. It's по-(relative adjective), meaning "in the manner of whatever it is the relative adjective is relative to". Relative adjectives in -ский (русский, пиратский) decline like ordinary adjectives, subject to the normal rule that и replaces ы after к. But "soft" relative adjectives from the names of animals go like третий, with a soft sign added in declension: русского, горячего but лисьего, волчьего. That's where the soft sign in по-волчьи etc. comes from.

Re: not necessarily names of animals

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

Well, technically сын and охотник are both names of animals, but you already know I'm a smart-arse, right? сыновий and охотничий are in the same "class" of relative adjectives that decline like третий, though, so it doesn't mean the rule is invalid, just that I didn't state it properly. Relative adjectives in -ий that insert a soft sign in declension keep that soft sign when used with the по- prefix.

Thanks for the clarification! As I said elsewhere, the computational linguist in me still thinks that Russian grammar can be made to make sense, although some native speakers might disagree ;)

Re: not necessarily names of animals

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

Well, you might naively assume that since -ский becomes -ски, then all adjectives make their по- forms by simply leaving off the й. But in fact the adverb form clearly comes from somewhere else in the declension.

In fact, I'm not a "real" computational linguist, just a programmer who's interested in languages. And I rarely post to my lj blog. But you are more than welcome. I shall do likewise, provided you don't object to my using it nefariously for reading practice ;)

Re: not necessarily names of animals

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was just expressing myself badly. Of course you didn't say that it was always about removing the й; it was me that wrongly tried to form the adverb from the "dictionary form" волчий rather than the stem волчь- . I think you're right in suggesting that the и in волчий might be treated as a fleeting vowel that appears only in the masculine nominative singular. The fact that it's the form you see when you open your dictionary might confuse the naive reader (like me) who doesn't immediately twig that it has that type of declension. That's really all I meant.

As for the -ов and -ин, it was my understanding that they were another class of relative adjective, that decline like nouns in some cases and like adjectives in others. But I don't want to start another debate on the topic ;)

[bartoli.livejournal.com]

говорить по телефону, послать по почте....

брак по любви, брак по расчёту

экзамен по литературе, книга по географии

специалист по финансам, следователь по особо важным делам, etc.

It is impossible to find a single English expression for "по".

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

but the most common may be
идти/ехать по дороге/по улице

so по should be translated according to the context - as "by", "via", "in", "based on", "of"...

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

yep

[surasure.livejournal.com]

and also:

мне по фигу(, что ты скажешь) = i don't give a damn
ему по барабану (мои проблемы) = he does not care at all

[surasure.livejournal.com]

(книга) пришлась мне по вкусу - the book suited my taste
(эта история) пришлась мне по душе - i found this story lovely
(давай) поговорим по душам - let's have a honest talk

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

по вкусу, по душе - both expressions (and such use of "по") are very rare now. They are rather archaisms.

[zeqfreed.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful they learned to post LJ-comments to the past in 2058.

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

oh, come on! Do you use those really often? I don't think so. Well, maybe with your grandma... or in a very very very official situation.

[zeqfreed.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just me and nobody else, but still, I wouldn't take them as archaisms.

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

По вкусу, по душе - archaic? zeqfreed is right, you must be from the future. I use them all the time, for one.

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

Maybe it depends upon the place, age and social group. In my town, age and between those people who communicate with me - both expressions are used very rarely. I believe that it's normal process within all languages. They just become more simple. If one can use one word instead of two or three, some day the more complicated expression shall disappear. In the above case we use simply "нравится" and "люблю" respectively.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Speak for yourself, then, and avoid needless generalizations. It is absolutely normal that some people have poorer vocabulary than others, but it is unwise to proclaim such narrow vocabulary a norm, even if you share it with your peers.

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

Let's not pass judgements upon those who you don't know. I suppose, you don't know me and my peers.

First of all, it's impossible to estimate if I have a poor or rich vocabulary on the basis of not using two words that you use. Besides, as I mentioned, it depends upon the place, age and social group. You are probably not in my social group (profession). Moreover, from your profile I can see that you're older than me by almost 15 years.
What did you expect if every living language changes in 5 years so much!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Still you cannot exclude me, as well as those who are 5, 10, 15, ... years older than I (and also 5 and 10 years younger,) from the total amount of living native speakers. As soon as we live (and I hope I'll yet dance at somebody's funeral ;-))), those words are in use, even if you, your peers, your social group and your age stratum already forget them. So, once again: speak for yourself and avoid needless generalizations, young man :-)

[alter-ego.livejournal.com]

You know, I also live "here in Moscow" and do hear those once or twice a year. OK, if it counts, they're not rare! You know, there are some really ancient expressions living as quotations from fairy tales, proverbs and so on. We even may use 'em from time to time. However in my opinion:
1. Any expressions with such a frequency of use are not worse learning for non-native speakers. Just a waste of time and space in your head.
2. This is not a primary (the most common) meaning of "по". It is not even a second or a third. Maybe, seventh or eleventh... So it's already hard to learn all of them. Why bother to learn them all? They'll be forgotten anyway. It's another waste of time!

It's just a rational approach.