Russian rules, Czech geography

[Martin Votruba]

> 1. The word "selo" as all the other Russian words of neuter gender
> ending on -o or -e (for sample ",boloto", "pole", "okno" and so
> on)  refers to the second declension and has the regular paradigm
> of  declantion "selo", "sela", "sely", "selo", "selom", "o sele";

Thanks for the post, and to Paul for making it legible.  It 
illustrates the gray area that the original query was about and what 
Paul enlarged on -- when does a foreign place name become like a 
native Russian word?

The Czech place name _Stare Mesto_ (_mesto_ means "town" in Czech, 
not "place"), for instance, is always declined in Russian: _v Starom 
Meste Pragi_ (never _v Starom Mesto Pragi_), although it is a foreign 
place name and not a "Russian" word, at least not in its Czech 
meaning and reference.  It is merely like a Russian word.  By 
contrast, the Spanish place name _Amesto_ would not be declined 
according to the Russian prescriptive rules.

There's this gray area between when a foreign Slavic place name in -o 
is automatically handled as a common Russian noun and when it is 
clearly perceived as foreign.

That also applies in other Slavic languages.  It's often not clear 
how to handle "cognate" (true or false) foreign Slavic place names 
that don't have an ending typical of the language in which they are 
to be used.

For instance, is the Belarusian place name _Baranovic~i_ to be 
handled like the Italian _Brindisi_, or like the recognizable Slavic 
plural noun that it is in the source language.


Martin

votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu

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