Table Of Content
A Comprehensive Russian Grammar
Blackwell Reference Grammars
General Editor: Glanville Price
The Blackwell Reference Grammars are essential companions for students of modern
languages at senior secondary school and undergraduate level. The volumes provide
a comprehensive survey of the grammar of each language and include plentiful examples.
The series will cover the major European languages, including French, German, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Russian.
Already published
A Comprehensive French Grammar, Sixth Edition
Glanville Price
A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Third Edition
Terence Wade
Updated, with additional material, by David Gillespie
Advisory Editor for previous editions: Michael J. de K. Holman
A Comprehensive Spanish Grammar
Jacques de Bruyne
Adapted, with additional material, by Christopher J. Pountain
A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar
David A. Thorne
Colloquial French Grammar: A Practical Guide
Rodney Ball
An Introduction to French Pronunciation, Revised Edition
Glanville Price
Grammar Workbooks
A Russian Grammar Workbook
Terence Wade
A French Grammar Workbook
Dulcie Engel, George Evans, and Valerie Howells
A Spanish Grammar Workbook
Esther Santamaría Iglesias
A Comprehensive
Russian Grammar
Third Edition
Terence Wade
Revised and updated by David Gillespie
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
This third edition first published 2011
©2011 Terence Wade
Edition history: Blackwell Publishers Ltd (1e, 1992 and 2e, 2000)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wade, Terence Leslie Brian.
A comprehensive Russian grammar / Terence Wade ; edited by David Gillespie. – 3rd ed., rev. and expanded.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-3639-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Russian language–Grammar. I. Gillespie, David. II. Title.
PG2106.W33 2010
491.782′421–dc22
2010021924
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in 10.5/12pt Times by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed in Singapore
1 2011
Contents
Preface xxv
Preface to the Second Edition xxvii
Preface to the Third Edition xxix
Acknowledgements xxxi
Acknowledgements to the Second Edition xxxiii
Abbreviations xxxiv
Introduction
1 The Cyrillic alphabet 1
2 The international phonetic alphabet (IPA) 2
Pronunciation
3 Stressed vowels 4
4 Unstressed vowels 5
5 Hard and soft consonants 7
6 Double palatalization 9
7 Non-palatalization of consonants in some loan words 9
8 Hard sign and soft sign 10
9 The reflexive suffix -сь/-ся 10
10 Effect of a soft consonant on a vowel in the preceding syllable 10
11 Voiced and unvoiced consonants 11
12 The pronunciation of -чн- 13
13 Consonants omitted in pronunciation 13
vi Contents
14 The pronunciation of double consonants 13
15 Stress 14
Orthography
16 Spelling rules 15
17 Use of capital and small letters in titles and names 16
Division of Words
18 Division into syllables 18
19 Splitting a word at the end of a line 19
Punctuation
20 Introductory comments 20
21 The full stop, exclamation mark and question mark 20
22 The comma: introductory comments 21
23 Uses of the comma 21
24 The colon. The semicolon. The dash 25
25 The punctuation of direct speech 28
26 Suspension points (многот(cid:10)чие) 29
The Noun
Word formation
27 Word formation in the noun I: general 30
28 Word formation in the noun II: prefixation 32
29 Word formation in the noun III: suffixation 34
Gender
30 Masculine, feminine and neuter gender 54
31 Masculine nouns 55
32 Feminine nouns 56
33 Soft-sign nouns 56
34 Neuter nouns 58
35 Common gender 58
36 Indeclinable nouns of foreign origin 58
Contents vii
37 Indeclinable place names 60
38 Titles of books etc. 60
39 Acronyms 60
40 Alphabetisms 61
41 Stump compounds 63
42 Compound hyphenated nouns 63
43 Differentiation of gender through suffixes 64
44 Professions 65
45 Animals 67
Declension
46 Introduction 67
47 Animacy 68
48 Nouns which are used only in the singular 70
49 Nouns which have a plural form only 72
50 Declension chart 73
51 First declension: masculine nouns 74
52 The fleeting vowel 75
53 Partitive genitive in -у/-ю 76
54 Prepositional/locative singular in -(cid:15)/-(cid:16) 77
55 Special masculine plural forms 79
56 Nouns whose genitive plural is identical with the
nominative singular 82
57 Stress patterns in first-declension masculine nouns 83
58 First declension: neuter nouns in -о 84
59 First declension: nouns in -е, -ье, -ё, -ьё 86
60 Stress patterns in the plural of neuter nouns 87
61 Second declension: nouns in -а/-я 88
62 Stress patterns in second-declension nouns 90
63 Third declension: soft-sign feminine nouns 92
64 Declension of neuter nouns in -мя 94
65 Declension of nouns in -ия/-ие 94
66 The masculine noun путь 94
67 The neuter noun дит(cid:21) 95
68 Д(cid:23)ти and л(cid:16)ди 95
viii Contents
69 Declension of first names 95
70 Declension of surnames 96
71 Declension of place names 97
72 Apposition in the names of publications, towns etc. 97
73 Declension of alphabetisms 99
74 Declension of hyphenated noun co-ordinates 100
75 Agreement of ряд, большинств(cid:10) etc. 100
76 Constructions of the type все поверн(cid:15)ли г(cid:10)лову 102
Case Usage
77 The nominative 103
78 The vocative 104
79 The accusative 105
80 The genitive: possession and relationship 106
81 The genitive: quantity 106
82 The genitive with adjectives 107
83 The partitive genitive 107
84 The partitive genitive in -у/-ю 109
85 Genitive in -у in set phrases 110
86 Genitive and negative 111
87 The genitive and accusative after negated verbs 112
88 Verbs that take the genitive 115
89 The dative as indirect object of a verb 118
90 Verbs that take the dative 119
91 Adjectives that take the dative 120
92 Impersonal constructions using the dative 120
93 The dative as the logical subject of an infinitive 121
94 The instrumental of function 121
95 The instrumental in constructions denoting movements
of the body 122
96 The instrumental in passive constructions 122
97 The instrumental in adverbial expressions 122
98 Use of the instrumental to denote similarity 124
99 Verbs that take the instrumental 124
100 Adjectives that take the instrumental 125
