: "Potstrochnik" A Second Thought About the Soviet Past

[Hugh Olmsted]

Vitalii and colleagues:

The normal spelling is подстрочник podstrochnik (from pref. pod 'under' and the nominal formant strok+ as in строка stroka 'line' [of text, verse].  Of course in this position the last consonant of the prefix becomes devoiced to /t/, providing the temptation to interpret and write the word as "potstrochnik'.

It means a literal translation, an interlinear or word-for-word rendering of a text.  

As for the word itself,  it's a representative of a grand old highly productive pattern of word-formation consisting of prefix denoting place or relative position + a nominal root + suffix -ник /-nik (expanded from earlier  adjectival -н+ / -n plus -ик /-ik), giving you a new noun which means something like the thing which is under / along / above (etc.) the object referred to. Stress typically on the penultimate syllable.

Some common examples:

подоконник / podokonnik 'window sill' (pod + ok#n+ [# used to denote fleeting vowel, most typically the zero/o alternation]),  
подстаканник / podstakannik  'tea-glass holder', (pod + stakan+)
подснежник / podsnezhnik 'snowdrop' [flower that grows and blooms up from under the late-winter snow) (pod + sneg+ [with of course the velar mutation you generally get with the ajectival -n+), 
подгузник / podguznik 'diaper' (pod + guz+ 'bottom [of a person, or an animal, or a sheaf of grain - now obsolete in its primary unsuffixed form])
подлотокник / podlokotnik 'armrest' [on a chair] (pod + lok#t+ 'elbow')
and the like.

And not only with the prefix pod, of course.  Cf. also:

подорожник / podorozhnik 'plaintain', a common roadside weed (po  'along' + dorog+ 'road'), 
поручейник / porucheinik 'water parsnip' (po 'along' + руч#й + 'stream, rivulet', exactly where the plant grows)
нагрудник / nagrudnik 'bib'(в смысле фартучек, слюнявчик) (na 'on' + grud+ 'breast, chest')
etc. etc.

for what it's worth...

Hugh


On Jan 4, 2013, at 10:31 PM, Vitalii Cherednichenko wrote:

> 
> What does "Potstrochnik" actually mean?  Is this a correct spelling?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Elena Gapova <e.gapova at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 8:32 PM
> Subject: [SEELANGS] A Second Thought About the Soviet Past
> To: SEELANGS at listserv.ua.edu
> 
> 
> Dear all,
>  
> 
>  
> Ideally, I am looking for co-contributors who would focus on the memoires of Chingiz Aitmatov, on "Potstrochnik" by Liliana Lungina, on  memoires by Ukrainian  (if such were published) and other writers/literati.
>  
> Elena Gapova
> 
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