vocative?

[Richard Robin]

I've never heard that. But Russian has a very informal vocative -- at least as
far as I have heard on a number of occasions: a zero-form:

Mam!
Ver!
Ljub!

etc.

What's interesting is that the final stop in such forms do not always undergo
devoicing. This seems to occur most often when the preceding vower is
lengthened with a rising-falling vocative intonation similar to English (not
one of Bryzgunova's 7 IKs), e.g. Lju-ub!

Does anyone know of more systematic research on this issue? It's always puzzled
me that this one form seems to produce a final voiced stop. Many years ago when
I mentioned this in a graduate seminar, the professor suggested a final
whispered vowel as a possible solution.

Yoshimasa Tsuji wrote:

> 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.

--
Richard Robin - http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~rrobin
German and Slavic Dept.
The George Washington University
WASHINGTON, DC 20052
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