Gender of Russian loan words

[Alexandra Smith]

Dear Annie Burkie,


There is a very interesting book that touches upon the issue of the  
unstable gender in Russian language as reflected in contemporary  
poetry. It's written by Professor Liudmila Zubova (St Petersburg State  
University)):Современная русская поэзия в контексте истории языка. М.,  
изд-во "Новое литературное обозрение" 2000.
I also like Zubova's article devoted to the issue of gender in  
contemporary poetry: Категория рода и лингвистический эксперимент в  
современной русской поэзии // Проблемы функциональной грамматики:  
Категории морфологии и синтаксиса в высказывании / Ред. А.В. Бондарко,  
С. А. Шубик. СПб., "Наука". 2000. С. 194-210.
I hope you'll find the above works helpful.

All best,
Alexandra




------------------------------------
Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
Reader in Russian
Department of European Languages and Cultures
School of  Languages, Literatures and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JX
UK

tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
fax: +44- (0)131- 650-3604
e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk


Quoting Annie Burke <annis.f.burke at GMAIL.COM>:

> Hello Seelangtsy!
>
> I've been a seelangs subscriber for some time but only recently came
> across a question worthy of your collective wisdom. I studied Russian
> in college and have spent enough time in Russia to speak the language
> fairly well, and have taken it upon myself to teach a friend of mine.
> We were going over gender of nouns this afternoon, and read in our
> Pulkina textbook from the 80s or 90s that loan words are neuter. But
> then he started asking whether words like музей, библиотека, альбом,
> etc. are neuter. I thought no, of course not! But when I looked in my
> dictionary I found that they were! However, a search on rambler.ru
> says that they are masculine, feminine and masculine, respectively. My
> suspicion is that two decades ago such words were loan-ey enough to be
> neuter, but now, especially with globalization gone wild, such words
> have been sufficiently adopted to take on what seem like more logical
> genders.
>
> Does anybody out there have any more detailed information about this
> type of gender transition? This seems like a pretty massive change in
> grammar to happen over the fewer than 15 years that has passed since
> my dictionary (Katzner) was published!
>
> Spasibo bol'shoe,
>
> Annie
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  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/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>



-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 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/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------