And now it's time for more stupid questions

[zhirafov-nyet.livejournal.com]

So I recently discovered the meaning of my surname (Dörfler); it means "villager" or "peasant" (yeah, isn't that a wonderful name to have?). Now, unless I'm mistaken, many Russian surnames are derived from nouns, are they not? If this is indeed the case, then I'm wondering: is there a Russian equivalence of Dörfler?

More on perfective vs. imperfective

[oryx_and_crake]

Some comments on perfective vs. imperfective issue that proved to be a non-trivial one.

In English, it is the usage of the verb that conveys the idea of perfectiveness or imperfectiveness of action.
Compare the usages of the verb to happen:
It has happened. It will happen tomorrow. - completed action
It is happening now. - prolonged action, non-perfective.

Not so in Russian. To convey the meaning of the above-mentioned sentences you will have to use two different verbs:
Это произошло. Это произойдет завтра. - произойти, perfective
Это происходит сейчас. - происходить, imperfective

So, the fate of a Russian verb is, so to say, written on its forehead - you don't have to construct phrases with it to find out whether it is perfective or not. Moreover, if a verb is imperfective it will be imperfective no matter in which phrases and in how many phrases do you put it. The dictionaries normally tell you whether a verb is perfective or imperfective. Most verbs (not all of them though) exist in perfective/imperfective pairs, like the abovementioned произойти/происходить.

UPDATE. Corrected the first English example, thanks everybody for the input.

Use of ли?

[crculver.livejournal.com]

How widespread is the enclitic interrogative particle ли in speech? I've gotten very used to using it in Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic composition exercises, and I know that this originally South Slavonic deal spread into Russian through Church Slavonic, but except for quoting the cartoon Мистер Фикс, I don't know how popular it is and what rules govern its use.