TRANSLATION OF DESCARTES QUOTE ???? YA YEST'

[John Dunn]

I have two questions arising out of the Allochka Arkhipova text.  The first is that it appear to me that in the sentence Я такая, как(ая) я есть [Ja takaja, kak[aja] ja est'] the verb is includsed not for emphasis, but because this is another grammatical environment where the zero copula is not possible.  Is this correct, and, if so, how might this environment be defined?  Is it, as I suspect, a matter of word order?

Alina Israeli describes the sentence Я такая, как я есть [ja takaja, kak ja est'] as ungrammatical, and I would be the last to disagree with her.  Yet the sentence is presumably acceptable to Allochka Arkhipova and possibly to her thousands (?) of readers(?).  I find the explanation of poetic licence vaguely unsatisfactory, but the best alternative I can come up with is that this usage is an extension of the rule that requires nominative adjectival complements to be in the short form if they precede the subject.  Can anyone come up with anything better?   

John Dunn.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Elena A. Arkhipova" <rkikafedra at NILC.SPB.RU>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 08:22:32 +0400
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] TRANSLATION OF DESCARTES QUOTE ???? YA YEST'

In this case "ya est" is absolutely normal because "esm" is not used in 
cotemporary Russian anymore, "est" takes its place. Here we can see the 
ellypsis of "ya" which is normal for Russian speech as well.


Elena A. Arkhipova, PhD, MBA
Chair of Department of
Russian as a Foreign Language,
Program Coordinator
Nevsky Institute of  Language and Culture
27 Bolshaya Raznochinnaya
St. Petersburg, 197110, Russia
tel./fax: +7 812 230 36 98

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:41 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] TRANSLATION OF DESCARTES QUOTE ???? YA YEST'


>I don't know how known/unknown "Allochka Arkhipova" is, but she is also 
>ungrammatical, which is forgiven in poetry. She should have said:
>
> Я такая, какая есть. = I am the way I am.
>
> On the internet she is definitely very popular: 10,200 for "я такая как 
> есть я не стану иной"
>
>
> John Langran wrote:
>> Thanks for the help. I'm interested in the use of есть (est') after я 
>> (ya), which I am sure I have heard more than once
>> I used google to find an interesting poem by a lady who I believe is 
>> unknown as a poet.
>> My deduction is that я есть (ya est') might be acceptable, when emphasis 
>> is required.
>> John Langran
>> www.ruslan.co.uk
>>
>> Я такая, как есть, я не буду другой,
>> Я такая, как есть, и останусь такой.
>>
[etc., etc.]


John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------