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The "single-stem" approach to the Russian verb system as conceived within this project provides a basic underlying stem for disparate verb forms (see examples in the accompanying table) together with a series of transformation rules which derive the final forms. The stem structure utilizes the concept of "fleeting vowels" based on the effect of the concepts of "loss of jers" and vocalic stem extensions, both of which have been attested as part of the evolution of the Russian verbal system. The transformation rules are grouped as a series of related changes and are sequenced in an attempt to reflect an historical chronology where possible.

Stems are classified as consonantal or vocalic. Consonantal stems are sub classified as obstruent or sonorant; й-glide stems are included in the latter classification. All so-called vocalic stems have a "fleeting vowel" as their final segment.

Commonly designated Imperfective Present Tense and Perfective Future Tense forms share the same endings and rules. Therefore, for this project these endings will be referred to as "Non-Past Endings". The theme vowel of non-past personal endings is determined by the stem classification. Stems with the "fleeting vowels" И, Е, and Я select the и theme vowel for the non-past endings; most other verb stems select the е theme vowel for the non-past endings. The fleeting stem-vowel Я will always be preceded by a palatal consonant; this verb class reflects the historical palatalization of velar consonants followed by the stem extension Е (derived from historical jat').

Verbs commonly referred to as "athematic" select special endings (дать, есть, etc.).

Participial Endings reflect a rather fertile cross-pollination across stem types, but basically follow non-past and past transformational processes. Note, however, that verbs of Perfective Aspect do not have "Present" participial forms; "Intransitive" verbs do not have passive participles.

The occurrence of -в- in the past active participle and past adverbial participle for consonant stems ending in -д- seems to be predicted when the infinitive ending IS NOT stressed; these forms will be treated as irregular formations.

The dynamic nature of stress associated with Russian verbs precludes the formulation of rules to comprehensively predict stress patterns for stem types. As a compromise, all stem types listed on the "Examples" page will be flagged so that a stress pattern for that verb stem can be indicated; for those stems the stressed vowel will be red.

On the "Irregular Forms" page I have opted to use an underscore to indicate stress.

Fleeting Vowels within this project include: А, О, Ы, У, Я, Е, И, Я, Ь. This representation of the class of "fleeting vowels" provides a convenient mechanism with which to account for various stem alternations otherwise requiring additional specialized rules. Note especially -ова- verbs (stem = -ОУА-) and verbs such as мыть (stem = -ОЫй-) with contiguous Fleeting Vowels.

In the "fleeting vowel" chart above, if one were to consider the first vowel of vocalic endings as "vowel position #1", the strong vowel position would always be odd numbers and the weak vowel position would always be even.

Rule 2 pertains to a group of verbs of which понять and обнять are representative. The ь in the letter sequences ьн, ьм is derived from the process associated with the fleeting vowel Ь occurring in strong position. That the resultant transformations depicted in Rule 2 derive from the same letter sequences reflect an early historical interrelationship between the fleeting vowel phenomenon ( often referred to as the "loss of the jers") and the appearance of nasal vowels in the Slavic family of languages.

Archaic, alternative, and related examples:

Note how поймать, the perfective infinitive form of ловить (to catch), resembles пойму, the 1st person singular form for the perfective non-past of понять (to understand, grasp [imperfective infinitive = понимать]). Daum and Schenk cite обойму as a dialectal non-past formation for обнять; in this system the stem would be обоЬнЬм-, analogous to поЬнЬм-]. Likewise, they cite отыму as an archaic non-past formation for отнять. If you consider that an origin for the letter ы is the juxtopositon of the back jer ъ and the Old Style vowel i (often representing the sound sequence йь, then the archaic formation could be generated from the stem объЬнЬм-. Daum and Schenk also cite an archaic perfective verb объять (to envelope), related to обнять (to embrace), and indicate that it is not used with non-past formations. However, Isachenko cites a non-past formation объемлю for which the stem объЕЬмй- could be postulated. These examples have been included to underscore the historically complex processes which underly the formations which occur today.

The application of this rule creates the mechanism which generates the palatal consonant alternation occurring in the non-past formations of several verbs with non-productive stem types.

See an example of the contrast between a verb which exhibits the alternation and one which doesn't in Additional Comments to Rule 1a.

This rule generates the consonant alternation in the non-past formations of VELAR stem verbs: пеку ~ печëшь.

Rules 5 through 8 are essentially "clean-up" rules which tidy up disparities left by earlier rules.

The environment for the first part of this rule is a stressed syllable. Because of the capricious nature of verbal stress, the rule will generally be applied in this project only with those stems listed in the "Example" table. The application of the е to ë part of the rule is not absolute. Daum and Schenk cite нëсши as normal usage for the adverbial participle (STEM = нес-), but несший (stem vowel is stressed) as normal usage for the past active participle; нëсший is cited as an archaic form of the past active participle. For вести (STEM = вед-) these same forms have a stressed stem vowel, but no transformation to ë.

The second part of the rule essentially applies to imperative form endings, to infinitive form endings, and to past forms of a restricted number of stems (e.g., бьй-).