Questions tagged [russian]

An East Slavic language spoken mainly in Russia and neighbouring territories. For non-linguistic questions about the Russian language, visit our sister site Russian Language Stack Exchange (or Русский язык Stack Exchange, if you are proficient in Russian).

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Why are some Russian and Swedish words so strikingly similar? Два - två, по-шведски - på svenska, etc

Hur säger man ... på svenska? This common Swedish phrase means: How do you say ... in Swedish? As a student learning Russian, I instantly saw a striking similarity with the Russian language. Russians ...
Mitsuko's user avatar
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36 votes
5 answers
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How similar are Ukrainian and Russian?

How similar are the Ukrainian and Russian languages? For example, can I reasonably expect that anybody from Ukraine would be able to understand spoken Russian or be able to read a Russian text?
Martin's user avatar
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11 votes
2 answers
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Why don't minimal pairs like "быть" and "бить" prove that /ɨ/ and /i/ are separate phonemes in Russian?

In analyses of Russian, there's a dispute about whether the vowels /ɨ/ and /i/ (typically represented in the orthography as "ы" and "и", respectively) are separate phonemes, or if [...
Peter Olson's user avatar
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8 votes
2 answers
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Why is the verb "to need" and "to observe" always imperfective in Slavic languages?

I have been reading into Balto-Slavic languages and come across a problem. "To need" is always imperfective. If I use the imperfective past verb, "to need," I am going to be still, presently needing ...
Anon's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
181 views

Combinatory Categorial Grammar (комбинаторная категориальная грамматика) developments and lexicon for Russian language?

I am trying to apply Cornell Semantic Parsing framwork https://github.com/cornell-lic/spf (implementation of Combinatory Categorial Grammars CCG) to Russian language. This framework takes natural ...
TomR's user avatar
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6 votes
5 answers
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On the phonetics of Russian ы

I have just started an Intensivkurs of Russian. What really struck me is the ubiquitous palatalization, but what I find most difficult is wrapping my head around the sound represented by ы. To me it ...
eslukas's user avatar
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6 votes
4 answers
484 views

Which languages have absorbed the most vocabulary from Russian, and which languages have influenced its vocabulary?

I'm a student of formal linguistics and Russian language, my question has been surprisingly hard to google -- I've studied a little Ukrainian, and I've read that its structurally similar to Russian ...
user173361's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
467 views

Is there some intrinsic relationship between the nominative plural and genitive singular?

In Latin the similarity between the nominative plural and genitive singular is most striking: First: porta (Nom/Sing) and portae (Nom/Pl), portae (Gen/Sing) and portarum (Gen/Pl) Second: servus (Nom/...
Ryan David Ward's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
954 views

What is the origin of the instrumental case of predicate in predicative nominals in Polish/Russian?

The syntax of predicative nominals and predicative adjectives in ancient IE languages and, as far as I know, almost every modern one : Subject (NOMINATIVE) + copula + predicate (NOMINATIVE) In ...
czypsu's user avatar
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