Russian rules, Czech geography
Martin Votruba
votruba+ at PITT.EDU
Mon Sep 17 17:23:21 UTC 2007
> 1. The word "selo" as all the other Russian words of neuter gender
> ending on -o or -e (for sample ",boloto", "pole", "okno" and so
> on) refers to the second declension and has the regular paradigm
> of declantion "selo", "sela", "sely", "selo", "selom", "o sele";
Thanks for the post, and to Paul for making it legible. It
illustrates the gray area that the original query was about and what
Paul enlarged on -- when does a foreign place name become like a
native Russian word?
The Czech place name _Stare Mesto_ (_mesto_ means "town" in Czech,
not "place"), for instance, is always declined in Russian: _v Starom
Meste Pragi_ (never _v Starom Mesto Pragi_), although it is a foreign
place name and not a "Russian" word, at least not in its Czech
meaning and reference. It is merely like a Russian word. By
contrast, the Spanish place name _Amesto_ would not be declined
according to the Russian prescriptive rules.
There's this gray area between when a foreign Slavic place name in -o
is automatically handled as a common Russian noun and when it is
clearly perceived as foreign.
That also applies in other Slavic languages. It's often not clear
how to handle "cognate" (true or false) foreign Slavic place names
that don't have an ending typical of the language in which they are
to be used.
For instance, is the Belarusian place name _Baranovic~i_ to be
handled like the Italian _Brindisi_, or like the recognizable Slavic
plural noun that it is in the source language.
Martin
votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu
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