"Svetilo" more or less awkward than "Zvezda"?

[Margarita Orlova]

Svetilo has about the same connotations as "a big guy"; the word  
requires to restrict the area of its use: Mr Pitt eto svetilo  
Amerikanskogo + bibliotehnogo dela. On - svetilo Amerikanskoj +genetiki.
On - Amerikanskoe linguistiheskoe svetilo sounds a bit awkward, though  
it is possible to see such usage on the Web. Most probably, there is a  
rule there working to move the adjective down the syntactic tree, to  
define the limiting area instead of defining svetilo itself.

Margarita A Orlova
Graduate Student in Linguistics, SJSU
PhD in Russian
http://rent-a-mind.com/margarita/


On Friday, January 11, 2008, at 10:40  PM, Prof Steven P Hill wrote:

> Dear colleagues:
>
> I certainly understand that trying to express in Russian a phrase like
> "American star" in reference to a male actor ("amerikansk-... zvezda"?)
> is awkward to the Russian ear.  I'm reminded of French, which has two
> different words for "star":   "etoile" and "vedette."  (Ironically,  
> both are
> feminine, which may not improve the situation for gallic native  
> speakers...)
>
> So let me raise the same question about a different Russian word for
> "luminary" (or perhaps "star"), namely, SVETILO.
>
> How would a Russian native speaker handle "Mr Pitt is an American
> luminary" with the word "svetilo"?  Would it be as awkward as "zvezda"?
> Less so?  Or even more so?
>
> S Novym godom,
> Steven P Hill,
> University of Illinois.
> _______________________________________________________________________ 
> _
>
> Date: Fri 11 Jan 16:49:56 CST 2008
> From: <LISTSERV at BAMA.UA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS
> To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU>
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:33:53 -0500
> From: Charles Byrd <byrdc at UGA.EDU>
> Subject: кинозвезда [kinozvezda]
>
> I'm afraid I didn't have an answer for a beginning language-learner's  
> questions:
> Is this term applicable to male stars?  Can it absorb masculine  
> gender, like
> "плакса" [plaksa]?  Which of the following, if any, is acceptable?
>
> 1)Брад Питт - известный американский кинозвезда.
>  [Brad Pitt - izvestnyi amerikanskii kinozvezda.]
> 2)Брад Питт - известная американская кинозвезда.
>  [Brad Pitt - izvestnaia amerikanskaia kinozvezda.]
>
> Thanks,
> Charles Byrd,
> Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
> The University of Georgia
> Athens, GA  30602-6797
> (706) 583-8160   byrdc at uga.edu
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:03:36 +0300
> From: Denis Akhapkin <denis at DA2938.SPB.EDU>
> Subject: Re: кинозвезда [kinozvezda]
>
> Формально второй вариант корректен - согласование должно быть
> грамматическим, а не смысловым.
> Правда, говорящие будут стараться избегать подобной конструкции, но
> она возможна - даже в заголовках газет:
> http://don.aif.ru/issues/640/11_01
>
> Первый вариант - безусловная ошибка.
>
> Formal'no vtoroj variant korrekten - soglasovanie dolzhno byt'
> grammaticheskim, a ne smyslovym.
> Pravda, govoriashchie budut starat'sia izbegat' podobnoj konstrukcii,
> no ona vozmozhna - dazhe v zagolovkah gazet:
> http://don.aif.ru/issues/640/11_01
>
> Pervyj variant - bezuslovnaia oshibka.
> __________________________________________________________
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:39:31 -0800
> From: William Nickell <bnickell at UCSC.EDU>
> Subject: Re: кинозвезда [kinozvezda]
>
> Google:
> "американский кинозвезда" = 0 hits
> "американская кинозвезда" produces over 5,000.
> In the first few pages there is one reference to a man (Виктор
> МЕРИНОВ — американская кинозвезда.) but
> all the rest to women, suggesting that the collocation sounds strange
> to the Russian ear and is avoided?  (I'm not a linguist).
>
> Google is great for usage questions
> Bill Nickell
> ________________________________________________________________
>
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