No subject

[Paul B. Gallagher]

John Hope wrote:

> SEELANGTSY!
>
> I appeal to your collective wisdom with a grammar question.  Today a
> young native speaker newly arrived from Moscow used the phrase день
> рождения было (den' rozhdeniia bylo).  She spelled the phrase день
> рождения correctly on the board, keeping the genitive, but used the
> neuter verb form.  When I suggested that this was grammatically
> incorrect, she told me that nobody now would say "den' rozhdeniia
> byl" or "moi den' rozhdeniia".
>
> I'd just chalk this up to "kids today," but when I asked an older
> native speaker, this one a Ph.D.-holding professional teacher of
> Russian, I was told that, when using the possessive pronoun, моё день
> рожденье (moe den' rozhden'e) is preferable, i.e. using the neuter
> form and the uninflected rozhden'e (precisely that, not рождение /
> rozhdenie).  I confess, I am unable to understand how such a
> construction is possible grammatically.  I agree that it is widely
> encountered (as a Google search demonstrates), but correct?
>
> Another, older native speaker and professional linguist told me he'd
> never heard моё день рожденье before, and said that it звучит дико.
> I'm inclined to agree, but not being a native speaker myself I
> hesitate.  Is anyone able to explain to me by what grammatical
> understanding the uninflected form and neuter modifier may be
> considered correct?

Only way it makes sense to me is if you treat it as a one-word compound: 
одно деньрожденье, одного деньрожденья, etc. That makes the whole 
compound the head noun, instead of the (modified) день being the head 
noun, and a neuter compound will take a neuter adjective.

My nonnative taste says this is illiterate, but I don't get a vote on 
how Russians speak their language.

-- 
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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