A declension question (was conjugation): THANKS

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Thanks to all who contributed to my edification: Svetlana Grenier, Elena
V. Baraban, and another subscriber who wrote privately and wishes to
remain anonymous.

I was actually spell-checking some OCR-ed pages in Abbyy FineReader, and
as you know you if you have the program, you can't just add a single
form to the dictionary, you have to add a whole paradigm.

So I made up an imaginary sentence that I hoped would give readers the
case and gender and force them to produce the genitive/accusative
plural. I wasn't looking for literary criticism, just the stress placement.

As it happens, both Москальцев and Москальцов exist as nominative
singular forms, at least on Google, so the stress must be somewhat
variable, like Иванов.

The consensus seems to favor final stress, though many respondents here
and on a translators' list to which I belong were uncomfortable
producing the form. The Google count also favors Москальцов heavily
(1710-60), FWIW. I suspect some instances of Москальцев may be spelling
errors by people intending a putative "Москальцёв."

And I turned up this article that goes on at length about the
involvement of one А. А. Москалец in a criminal case, using the
instrumental singular form "Москальцом" several times, which makes it
clear that the stress is final, at least for this individual:
<http://www.uralpolit.ru/docs/?article_id=1480>

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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