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

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)

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

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!)

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

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

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

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

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…

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)

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