List of known Russian Morphemes?

[Hugh M. Olmsted]

Dear Colleagues,

Speaking of root lists and the 60's, I thought I'd share a bit of history.

When Alex Lipson, Chuck Gribble and I were all in Cambridge in the early
sixties, we devised a fairly ambitious plan to come up with a root list for
serious pedagogical work at the intermediate-to-advanced level of Russian
study, grading into teaching historical and comparative Slavic linguistics.
Alex was to provide the introduction and if memory ne podvodit some
exercises, and Chuck and I the root list proper.  Chuck already had an early
version he was using at Brandeis, and it was to provide the kernel around
which the further work was to develop.

Job Geography took us to various places--Alex and I went to Cornell, Chuck
to Indiana--and one way or another the great joint project never was brought
off.  Chuck and I both kept working on our versions of enriched rootlists,
however, and Chuck, as the one with the publishing house (Slavica), did
issue two editions of his good rootlist, which has become deservedly well
known.

For my part, I also kept developing my version, which I used with
generations of students at Cornell; it included or was accompanied by my own
effort at a prefix list, a systematic introduction, and exercises.  Alex
also used it in his classes, endorsed it, and made helpful suggestions.

Since this version has remained less known than the published Slavica
editions, I'll mention a few of its features:

1. The entries, in Cyrillic, were supposed morphophonemic base forms, with
all native roots taken as ending in Consonants (sonorants or prime
obstruents: no sh/zh/ch/shch or their equivalents--the latter were taken as
produced by derivational and inflectional rules).

2. The depth of historical/morphophonemic derivation did not go deeper than
the forms indicated in point 1).  VRAT and VOROT, for example, were not
taken from a putative *VORT, but entered as coordinate related forms with
appropriate marking of register / origin (OCS / Russian).

3. It contained a fairly full-blown system of primary versus secondary roots
(of the sort KAZ --> SKAZ) with the information entered under both members
of the pair.  In numerous cases the non-primary forms were not just
secondary, but tertiary, quaternary, and so on.  In some instances the
relationship was more or less transparent synchronically; in others, far
from it (hence the gradation into historical use) -- (of the type VERT -->
VERST or VREMEN)

4. In other cases the relation was one not of parent to child but of sibling
to sibling, also represented by a system of coordination in the list (cf.
the VRAT:VOROT:VERT, or PUST:PUSK).  Here, too, the relationship was
indicated under both (all) members of the pair (group).

5. A systematic attempt was made to give English-language equivalent
base-forms, largely of Latin and Greek origin, that "work" in parallel
fashion in English, whether as a result of outright calquing historically
(e.g. in Greek to Latin on the one hand / Greek to OCS to Russian, on the
other) or as the result of a sort of natural / typological parallelism.
Example: the entry STOI (in Cyrillic, with i kratkoe) would in its English
definition include the root -SIST- (as in consist [sostoiat'], insist
[nastoiat'/-ivai+], resist [otstoiat'/-ivai+], etc.).

This old list has lain unused now for many years.  It doubtless contains all
sorts of fossile errors and omissions.  But if after all it were of interest
to anyone to take a look at, I would be happy to send out a copy for the
cost of reproduction.

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