The information contained on the pages associated with this project is not meant to be definitive, but rather reflect a work in progress. Feedback and suggestions are always much appreciated, as I have been away from the academic environment for a number of years and may be unaware of recent developments and threads of academic investigation. (September 19, 2013)
Leslie F. Bailey
[Return to the Bailey Website Home Page]
The presentation of the "Single Stem Approach" is an exercise in descriptive analysis. The ordered rules, as presented, can only be applied once in the generation of the same verb form. Reference links enable one to access additional illustrations, examples, and exceptions, as well as commentary on historically documented processes that may be reflected in a specific rule. An attempt has been made to explicate linguistic terms and to provide Russian equivalents.
The rationale underlying this project stems from a concept postulated by Roman Jacobson and enhanced through the generative-transformational approach to linguistic analysis proposed by Chomsky/Halle back in the 60's. My first attempt to codify this process was using the PLATO system at the University of Illinois in the 70's. While Director of Language Laboratories at Northwestern University I investigated the presentational format of Hypercard on Apple's Macintosh platform. After leaving Northwestern and working as a techie in the private sector I switched to the HTML format on the Microsoft Widows platform. My focus was to learn HTML and JAVA syntax -- HTML for the purpose of presentation and JAVA to create an applet which would evaluate a verb stem and then, depending upon the ending selection, list a progression of steps culminating in the appropriate final representation of the verb form. The caveat had been that "stem" input for the applet required the use of transliterated Latin letters, instead of Cyrillic.
The technology continues to progress so that the verb form generation engine can parse Cyrillic strings using Java Script within the context of CSS and HTML formating.
Within the context of a generative presentation model there are many creative approaches for realizing the final form. My approach is to expand the concept of "fleeting vowels" to include stem-extension vowels as well as those derived from jers so as to provide a mechanism to differentiate basic stem types for such verbs as бросать (бросают), сосать (сосут), писать (пишут).
The time and energy, both past and present, devoted to this project are dedicated to the memory of Valdis Zeps, past Professor of Linguistics at the Univeristy of Wisconsin, Madison.
In reality any pedagogical value eminating from this project will probably remain elusive; however, curious students of Russian may gleen some insight of underlying processes and structures which might have played a part in the formation of the Russian verbal system.