No subject

[Bradley Agnew Gorski]

Irina and others:

I'm interested in a follow-up question: Do children then congratulate each
other (and their parents) with the words, "с деньрождением"?

Bradley

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:41 AM, Irina Shevelenko <idshevelenko at wisc.edu>wrote:

> 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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-- 
bradleygorski at gmail.com
+7.965.287.2737

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