vocative?

[Robert De Lossa]

Ukrainian: Valerii > Valeriiu. Valera should produce a vocative form
?Valero (don't know if it's used, though). I only know Valerii as a
standard form and Valera/Valiera as a nickname; according to Ukrainian
vocative rules a form ?Valeriu should come from ?Valer' and *Valeru would
not be a possible vocative form (*Valer would produce *Valere). However,
the use of the vocative "according to the book" is problematic anyway,
especially when used in casual settings with diminutive forms. It strikes
me that most bilingual Ukrainian/Russian speakers would use a (Russian)
zero-ending and produce ?Valer if they used a vocative at all. I'm not sure
what monolingual Ukrainian speakers would do. Theoretically, they should
produce ?Valero. Katkouski's Belarusian forms seem the more plausible
explanation.

Rob De Lossa

>
>Dear experts,
>I wonder if accusative case form is used for vocative in the Russian
>language. I have long thought only the nominative case form is used
>for that purpose.
>
>Here's my recent experience: As I was sitting in a marshrutnyj taxi,
>which is just a micro bus, yesterday, a chap suddenly found a friend
>in the street and invited him to join him in the bus. On that occasion
>he cried, "Va-le-ru!" a couple of times. I was puzzled by thinking
>why he didn't say "Valera!"  Valeru because he was wanted? Or is that
>a Ukrainian vocative?
>
>I have asked a couple of my Russian friends for explanation, and got
>the same answer so far: "illiteracy".  As I don't think there exists
>such a thing as illiteracy among language users, I have felt it
>necessary  to put you a query.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Tsuji


____________________________________________________
Robert De Lossa
Director of Publications
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-8768; fax. 617-495-8097
reply to: rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu
http://www.sabre.org/huri/