Thread: hard or soft ending?

the letter "e" is a soft ending in море but how about in кладбище and болотце? I'm wondering because кладбище and болотце take hard endings in declension yet their last letter (e) is soft.
thanks

Ед. число Множ. число
Именительный мо'ре моря'
Родительный мо'ря море'й
Дательный мо'рю моря'м
Винительный неод. мо'ре моря'
Творительный мо'рем моря'ми
Предложный мо'ре моря'х

Ед. число Множ. число
Именительный кла'дбище кла'дбища
Родительный кла'дбища кла'дбищ
Дательный кла'дбищу кла'дбищам
Винительный неод. кла'дбище кла'дбища
Творительный кла'дбищем кла'дбищами
Предложный кла'дбище кла'дбищах

Ед. число Множ. число
Именительный боло'тце боло'тца
Родительный боло'тца боло'тцев
Дательный боло'тцу боло'тцам
Винительный неод. боло'тце боло'тца
Творительный боло'тцем боло'тцами
Предложный боло'тце боло'тцах

Море Кладбище Болотце.mp3

Originally Posted by sperk

the letter "e" is a soft ending in море but how about in кладбище and болотце? I'm wondering because кладбище and болотце take hard endings in declension yet their last letter (e) is soft.
thanks

Щ and Ц don't have hard and soft variants. For example, "щ" is pronounced equally in "кладбище" and "кладбища". There are grammatical rules about spelling of "ша/ща", "жи/ши" and so on.

Originally Posted by sperk

the letter "e" is a soft ending in море but how about in кладбище and болотце? I'm wondering because кладбище and болотце take hard endings in declension yet their last letter (e) is soft.
thanks

The letter е cannot be soft or hard but the consonants can. In the word "море" the sound /р/ is soft (that is /р'/) but the letter е is pronounced like /э/

Originally Posted by Полуношник

Originally Posted by sperk

the letter "e" is a soft ending in море but how about in кладбище and болотце? I'm wondering because кладбище and болотце take hard endings in declension yet their last letter (e) is soft.
thanks

Щ and Ц don't have hard and soft variants. For example, "щ" is pronounced equally in "кладбище" and "кладбища". There are grammatical rules about spelling of "ша/ща", "жи/ши" and so on.

/Щ/ is always soft and /Ц/ is always hard

/я / is replaced by /а/ after ж,ч,ш,щ,г,к,х.
ж,ц,ш are always hard.

Yes, and:
ч, щ are always soft
й is neither soft nor hard.

Actually щ is a soft variant of ш.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Yes, and:
ч, щ are always soft
й is neither soft nor hard.

Actually щ is a soft variant of ш.

й is always soft! And щ is not a variant of ш! http://www.pshelp.narod.ru/lib/applicant/0002-006.html

Originally Posted by iriroma

й is always soft! And щ is not a variant of ш!

Why?
Try to soften ш and you will get щ. Try to soften ж and you will get sound жь which is not used in Russian but still is pronouncible. Try to harden ч and you will get a sound like тш, which is also pronouncible. That is my criterion. I say Й is neither soft nor hard because it has no imaginable couple.

http://www.pshelp.narod.ru/lib/applicant/0002-006.html

Yeah, I have seen sentences like this. Nothing more than very questionable opinion with no argumentation IMHO.

BTW I disagree that vowels can not be soften. For me it is clear that ы and и make a hard-soft couple. The same are vowels in матч and мяч: they are different by itself, not only because of the soft and hard м. etc.

Я так думаю.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Originally Posted by iriroma

й is always soft! And щ is not a variant of ш!

Why?
Try to soften ш and you will get щ. Try to soften ж and you will get sound жь which is not used in Russian but still is pronouncible. Try to harden ч and you will get a sound like тш, which is also pronouncible. That is my criterion. I say Й is neither soft nor hard because it has no imaginable couple.

http://www.pshelp.narod.ru/lib/applicant/0002-006.html

Yeah, I have seen sentences like this. Nothing more than very questionable opinion with no argumentation IMHO.

BTW I disagree that vowels can not be soften. For me it is clear that ы and и make a hard-soft couple. The same are vowels in матч and мяч: they are different by itself, not only because of the soft and hard м. etc.

Я так думаю.

Let me try to clear this point

1. I agree that in modern Russian pronunciation Щ behaves as a soft counterpart of Ш. The only difference is that Щ sounds longer than Ш. Try saying ЩИ. Actually, it is pronounced like [ШьШьИ] (here I use a small "ь" letter to indicate the softness).

However, there is an important difference in spelling as compared to other hard-soft pairs. We use the SAME letter for both hard and soft consonants in most of cases, e.g.: браТ, Там, Ток, Туп, Ты - hard Т vs маТЬ, Тянет, Тёк, Тюк, Тина - soft Т.
But there is no such orthographic correspondance between Ш and Щ. Ш is only used to indicate the hard sound. ШИ, ШЁ, ШЮ, ШЬ are still pronounced hard: ШИЛО = [шыло], ШЁЛ = [шол], ПАРАШЮТ = [парашут], МЫШЬ = [мыш]. As well as ЩА, ЩО, ЩУ are still pronounced soft: ЩАВЕЛЬ = [щявель], ПЛАЩОМ = [плащём], ЩУКА = [щюка].

2. I do not agree that the soft Жь sound (which is a voiced version of Щ) is not used in Russian. Many people (including me) pronounce ДРОЖЖИ, ВОЖЖИ, ПРИЕЗЖАТЬ with a long soft ЖьЖь. However, this sound is considered optional in modern Russian.

3. Й is a soft consonant. A soft consonant is a consonant which is pronounced with lifting the middle part of the tongue towards the palate. Й IS pronounced this way. Therefore, it IS soft.

4. I CAN imagine a hard couple for the Й sound. Some Russians may devoice final Й in words like ПРОДАЙ. In this case (when devoiced) it sounds like [пра-ДАХЬ]. Thus, ХЬ and Й are a pair of voiceless and voiced consonants (both of them are soft). If you want to get a hard Й, it would be the same as a voiced Х (which is used in southern Russian pronunciation in place of Г). It is also used in the forms БОГУ, БОГА, БОГОМ by some (but not all) native speakers.
Note: Ukrainian Г and southern Russian Г are not the same. The Ukrainian Г is a voiced [h] (pronounced deep in the throat) whilest the southern Russian Г is a voiced [х] - the sound we are looking for!

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

4. I CAN imagine a hard couple for the Й sound. Some Russians may devoice final Й in words like ПРОДАЙ. In this case (when devoiced) it sounds like [пра-ДАХЬ]. Thus, ХЬ and Й are a pair of voiceless and voiced consonants (both of them are soft). If you want to get a hard Й, it would be the same as a voiced Х (which is used in southern Russian pronunciation in place of Г). It is also used in the forms БОГУ, БОГА, БОГОМ by some (but not all) native speakers.
Note: Ukrainian Г and southern Russian Г are not the same. The Ukrainian Г is a voiced [h] (pronounced deep in the throat) whilest the southern Russian Г is a voiced [х] - the sound we are looking for!

OMG, I feel like you play with too delicate matters. Difference between Ukrainian Г and southern Russian Г... Remember that local pronunciation is a statistical value and there is no sense to calculate it several orders more accurate than statistical error.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

OMG, I feel like you play with too delicate matters. Difference between Ukrainian Г and southern Russian Г... Remember that local pronunciation is a statistical value and there is no sense to calculate it several orders more accurate than statistical error.

First,
It is not me who has invented that I am just citing the facts you may easily find in many articles on Russian dialectology.

Second,
I am not going to argue that 100% of southern Russian dialect speakers would pronounce it exactly this way!
My original goal was not to state that the Ukrainian Г and southern Russian Г always differ. I only used this explanation in order to specify the sound exactly without using the IPA (I was just too lazy to type IPA symbols )
OK, you have forced me to do that.
So called "Ukrainian Г" is [ɦ], and so called "southern Russian Г" is [ɣ]. The terms "Ukrainian" and "Southern Russian" were just terms for sounds, not vice versa

PS

it-ogo, as an example, you may check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Russian_dialects

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

First,
It is not me who has invented that I am just citing the facts you may easily find in many articles on Russian dialectology.

Facts? Look, there is a border between facts and opinions and I feel like those statements are very far on the territory of opinions, no matter of who say it and where is it written. You stated here something and I polemize with you rather than with someone from Russian dialectology.

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

OK, you have forced me to do that.
So called "Ukrainian Г" is [ɦ], and so called "southern Russian Г" is [ɣ]. The terms "Ukrainian" and "Southern Russian" were just terms for sounds, not vice versa

OK, now you provided some definitions. So we are going from the living language to the ideal world of pure logic and scholastics? No, I don't like this. I speak Russian but I am not a linguist so I prefer to speak about Russian Й than about something ideal from IPA. You didn't convience me that any kind of ХЪ is a hard couple of Й, I do not hear it. Yes, they are close but not enough close.


No, seriously, this is the area where too much concentration is harmfull because of the millipede phenomenon: "сороконожка, а как ты в ногах не путаешься?"

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Originally Posted by iriroma

й is always soft! And щ is not a variant of ш!

Why?
Try to soften ш and you will get щ. Try to soften ж and you will get sound жь which is not used in Russian but still is pronouncible. Try to harden ч and you will get a sound like тш, which is also pronouncible. That is my criterion. I say Й is neither soft nor hard because it has no imaginable couple.

http://www.pshelp.narod.ru/lib/applicant/0002-006.html

Yeah, I have seen sentences like this. Nothing more than very questionable opinion with no argumentation IMHO.

BTW I disagree that vowels can not be soften. For me it is clear that ы and и make a hard-soft couple. The same are vowels in матч and мяч: they are different by itself, not only because of the soft and hard м. etc.

Я так думаю.

it-ogo! There exist phonetical rules and you cannot agree or disagree with them. Also, the examples you gave with "матч" and "мяч" don't make any sense. In the word "матч" /м/ is hard, though in the word "мяч" /м'/ is soft and it is followed by the sound /a/!!!

Originally Posted by iriroma

it-ogo! There exist phonetical rules and you cannot agree or disagree with them.

Why? Is it written in the Constitution?
You must understand that the language is primary and those "rules" are secondary. Those rules are just a kind of agreement between some guys (maybe only few of them?) who are making some research in linguistics, nothing more. For us (amatures) those rules are useless because we are out of context and can not understand them properly. I prefer to use a common sense where I have no professional knowledge. Common sense never betrays me.

Originally Posted by iriroma

Also, the examples you gave with "матч" and "мяч" don't make any sense. In the word "матч" /м/ is hard, though in the word "мяч" /м'/ is soft and it is followed by the sound /a/!!!

Try to pronounce the hard sound /a/ after the soft consonant (мьач) and you will get a strong foreign accent. That's what I hear.

it-ogo! There is no foreign accent in the pronunciation of the word /м'ач/unless you pronounce it like /миач/!
Of course we are all human beings and have our own way to talk or pronounce some sounds, but there's no need to impose your ideas on others. If you invented a new way to pronounce the sound /j/ and it turns to be a hard one, my congratulations then! Even though I still cannot understand how /j/ can be

neither soft nor hard

.

i-togo is not a linguist, he said so. He has no knowledge of how linguists describe language, he does not know how sounds have been analyzed and then descriptions written for them. No Slavic linguist will say that vowels are "soft" or "hard", but rather it is the consonants (actually we would not use these two terms at all-- in Russian we speak of palatalized and unpalatalized consonants, and also palatal consonants). This is not just something that some guy on this forum has dreamed up.

it-ogo, your common sense has betrayed you in this.

Originally Posted by chaika

it-ogo, your common sense has betrayed you in this.

You mean my ear and tongue?

My ear can differentiate, for example, "э-э-э" and "е-е-е", pronounced even without any consonant, not "йе-е-е" or "ме-е-е". (Though sometimes it maybe something intermediate.) "If there is an inscription TIGER on the elephant cage, don't believe your eyes."