Elementary Russian Language Lab Unit 1 Week 4 (Lab 4), 2 сентября 2020 | September 2, 2020

Grammatical gender

Russian has three grammatical genders — masculine, feminine, neuter — and two “numbers”, singular and plural.

All nouns and modifiers have gender OR number. (All plurals in Russian are... I guess genderless? They aren't marked for gender.)

Nouns: Nothing new here, kids. We’ve always known what nouns are: 

A noun is a kind of word (see part of speech) that is usually the name of something such as a person, place, thing, animal, or idea

Nouns have an “inherent” gender, they “always are” a certain gender: студент is always masculine, студентка is always feminine, etc. There are "markers" on most nouns that denote gender:

-а/-я is (almost always) feminine, -о/-ё is (almost always) neuter, -∅ (no ending) is masculine, and -ы/и usually marks the plural. (Recall that Russian "doubles" its vowels, so а and я both denote the same underlying phoneme or sound, /ah/.)

So, look at the words 

студентка (ends in an -a so it's feminine)
студент (ends in "nothing" -- no o, a, ы, nothing! -- so it's masculine)
студенты (ends in -ы so it's plural)

Все так просто!

Just one thing: Some nouns that indicate a MALE are "marked" with a feminine ending... Take for instance папа, dad. Clearly, dad is a guy (well, at least to the Russian mind...). But the word папа is marked with a vowel (a) that indicates feminine. HOWEVER! The modifier "knows" the "real" gender of папа: Это мой папа. (The modifier is masculine!)... This is true for many male nicknames like Лёша, Ваня, Федя, Саша... If it's a boy, these nicknames are masculine and the modifiers would indicate that.  (See below for an explanation of how modifiers reflect the gender of the noun they modify.) 

Modifiers: These words reflect the gender of the noun they modify. You guys know this from basic Spanish: “el nino hermoso” and all that. 

Modifiers: Anything that makes a noun more specific. Not just any car! That car. My car. My blue car. You get the idea. 

We start with simple possessive pronouns, “my car."

мой 
моя
моё
мои  

Here are some examples from the book. The word это means "this is, that is"... it's how Russians "show stuff"... This is my house! This is my life! 

Assignment: On FlipGrid here you'll find an assignment where you have to use the correct form of мой. You might need to create a FlipGrid account if you haven't already... Use your "stetson.edu" address and it should not be a problem. If you run into difficulties accessing FlipGrid, let me know: We'll be using it ALL SEMESTER. 

"Hard and Soft" consonants

Hard and Soft Consonants: For almost every consonantal sound we have in English, Russian has two: a “hard” and a “soft”. Leave aside for a moment the actual phonemic difference: How do you know if a consonant is hard or soft? The default is always hard. That is to say, unless you have information contrariwise, assume that the consonant is “hard.” The consonant is “soft” if it is followed by the “soft sign” (мягкий знак) or if it is followed by a “vowel that induces softness in the preceding consonant” — aka, a “soft vowel.” (Note that the vowel itself isn’t soft—we just call it that because it’s easier than saying “vowel that induces softness in the preceding consonant.”)

Hard consonants +	а          о             у            э              ы
Soft consonants +	я        ё              ю            е              и

Here's an exercise to test your ability to IDENTIFY hard/soft consonants...