Russian Declension and Conjugation

1. Russian Declension and Conjugation Chapter 7: Verbal Adjectives and Verbal Adverbs

2. Just in case you were wondering… • “Verbal adjectives” are PARTICIPLES • Imperfective: • present active (ведущий) & present passive (просимый) • Perfective: • past active (can be imperfective; живший, выпивший) & past passive (вымытый) • “Verbal adverbs” are GERUNDS • Imperfective > present (прося) • Perfective > past (сняв)

3. A note on reflexives • For reflexive verbs, always add –ся to a participle, and always add –сь to a gerund • For past gerunds, this means that you have to have –vši (no truncation of –vši to –v): улыбнувшись

4. A handy reference! • Look at the back cover of the Townsend book! • It has tables showing the distribution of the past passive participle and the past active participle formants! • You might want to memorize these tables! (Or at least become very good friends with them!)

5. Present Formants • Present Active Participles: I conjugation adds -ušč-, II conjugation adds -ašč- • Present Passive Participles: I conjugation adds -om-, II conjugation adds -im- (limited to certain suffixed types: AJ, VAJ, OVA, I, E, h-A) • Present Gerund: -a

6. Present stress • For the present participles and gerund: • Stress on stem if non-past has fixed stem stress, otherwise, stress on vowel of formant • Except: Stress on stem if the non-past has shifting stress • An easier rule: It’s usually on the formant, but if the verb has non-past shifting stress, it’s on the stem

7. Past formants • Past Active Participle and Gerund: -š(-) for obstruent stems, R, (NU) [occasional truncation of stem consonant instead, o>e in D/T stems], -vš(-/i) for all others • Stress is same as masculine past, but cannot be on prefix (except R verbs, that can have stressed prefix) • Perfective motion verbs can have past gerund in –a instead of -vši

8. PPP • -t- for resonants, NU, (NU), O • -on- for obstruents, I, E (j-mutation) • -n- for others (no j-mutation for A verbs) Mnemonic device: You add an obstruent (t) to resonant stems, and a resonant (n) to obstruents

9. Note this deviation: • Levin says that E verbs have the –on- PPP formant, and states that V+V mutation is regular, but “occasional” • Townsend says that E verbs have the –n- formant, and notes that C mutation in the PPP is rare for these verbs • The vowel before the n in these PPPs almost never bears stress, so it is hard to decide which one it is anyway…

10. Stress on the PPP • Long forms for suffixed stems: • -t-, -n-: if stress is on suffix (fixed or shifting) in base form, it retracts one syllable, otherwise stress remains where it is in base form • -on-: if non-past has shifting stress, stress retracts one syllable, otherwise same as base form • Long forms for unsuffixed stems: • -t-, -on-: same syllable as past tense (non-feminine)

11. Stress on the PPP, cont’d. • Suffixed verbs: • -t-, -n-: same stress as long form • Both suffixed and unsuffixed verbs: • Stressed –on- in long form means ending stress for all short forms • Unsuffixed verbs: • -t-: if past has shifting stress, so does short PPP