intuitive labels for verb conjugations

[Oscar E Swan]

I guess the conjugation topic isn't going to die out as quickly as I
thought it would.

I assume that by the -esh and -ish conjugations one means the -'osh and
-it conjugations (-esh is just unstressed -'osh).

There is, in fact, a hierarchical valuation in the numbering. The first or
-'osh conjugation is larger, more variegated, and has more productive
types than the second, or -ish types. Basic underived verbs tend to be
first-conjugation, connected to the fact that all second-conjugation verbs
are suffixal, and the suffixes once had some kind of derivational
significance. All imperfective suffixes are first-conjugation, and, as a
consequence, almost every prefixed perfective second-conjugation verb has
a first-conjugation counterpart (e.g. sprosit; sprashivat').
Proto-Slavically, the first conjugation loaned the second conjugation the
1.p.sg. ending which shows up in Russian as -u, a facto reflecting the
early influence of the first conjugation on the second.

On a totally deep, morpheme-explicit level, the conjugations have the same
final endings (-u -sh -t -m -te -nt); it's the suffixes intervening
between the verb root and the endings which are different. The first and
second "conjugations" emerge at what may be viewed as the operative
stem-ending level, which is also the level of speaker awareness, and the
level at which the verb is taught to foreigners. So there is a
psychological reality to the conjugation-distinction, even if it can be
demonstrated that there is no deep-structural difference between them.

The best way to teach the Russian verb (I say, without fear of
contradiction) is to require from the beginning the simultaneous learning
of the infinitive together with the 1.p.sg. and 2.p.sg. (the two most
important discourse forms of the verb). All information one needs
is contained in these forms, and the need to mention the word conjugation
virtually disappears. If govorish is part of what students learn for the
verb 'speak', it becomes superfluous to point out that the verb is an -ish
verb.


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Oscar E. Swan   Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures
1417 Cathedral of Learning   Univ. of Pittsburgh  15260
412-624-5707      swan+ at pitt.edu
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