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[Irina Shevelenko]

Dear John,

"Мой день рождения был" is the only right way to say it in modern literary Russian. "Моё день рождение" is the way kids say it invariably, until they are formally introduced to Russian grammar. As a child, you treat "день рождение" as a single word and you determine its gender by the second noun; hence the phrase "моё день рождение было".  Once you learn that it is in fact "день рождения (or рожденья)" (Nom. followed by Gen.), you realize that it is "день" that determines the gender of a possessive pronoun and a verb. Some people never cease to be kids, as we know, and they keep saying it the kids' way. It seems to be pretty common, indeed, to hear "моё день рождение" in colloquial Russian but it is completely a-grammatical ("моё день рождения" takes this a-grammaticism just one step further).

Best,

Irina

-----Original Message---
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of John Hope
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 7:48 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS]

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?

Many thanks,

John P. Hope
Colgate University


      

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