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The Conjunction "Li"

The Conjunctions ЕСЛИ and ЛИ "If"

The subordinating conjunction ли means "if" or "whether", e.g. Sam didn't say if/whether he would come. However, the Russian conjunction is a clitic, which means it does not have an accent and therefore must attach itself to a word that does have accent. For this reason, ли is always in the second position of the clause it marks, rather than in first position like other conjunctions. Moreover, the subordinate clause it introduces requires inverted word order; that is, the verb must be moved to the beginning of the subordinate clause and ли is attached to the end of it. All other words in the sentence remain in their normal positions. The problem is that Russian has another conjunction meaning "if": если. The question then is, when do you use ли and when do you use если? Remember this: The Russian 'If' Rule If in English you may use whether, in Russian you must use ли. Otherwise, use если The same rule applies to the more dated variant of если, коли "if" and the semantic variant раз "once", e. g. Раз он придёт, мы будем веселиться Once he arrives, we'll have fun. Here are a few examples to enjoy. Read them over carefully, comparing them with the translations and noting both the selection of ли and если and the word order of sentences containing the former. Он ничего не скажет, если не хочет. He won't say anything, if he doesn't want to. Он не скажет, придёт ли он домой. He won't say if/whether he will come home. Маша прочтёт все стихи, если я скажу. Masha will read all the poetry if I tell her to. Я не уверен, прочтёт ли она все стихи. I'm not sure if/whether she will read the poetry.

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The Russian Conjunction "Poka"

The subordinating conjunction пока means "while", "as long as", or "for the time being". It may be used alone as a farewell greeting when the speaker knows that he will be seeing the addressee soon; it is the equivalent of the English See you later. As a conjunction it refers to the duration of time, e.g. Друзья ждали, пока я ехала домой "My friends waited while I drove home." The conjunction serves to indicate that the time required to carry out the action of the verb in the subordinate clause is equal to that required to carry out the action of the verb in the main clause. An interesting gap in Russian is the lack of a conjunction meaning "until". To work around this lacuna, Russians use a special construction based on пока. Since the durational meaning of пока semantically requires an imperfective verb, Russians use this same conjunction with a negated perfective verb to express "until": Друзья ждали, пока я не приехала домой "My friends waited until I arrived home." Remember, (1) the verb must be perfective and (2) it must be negated for пока to be interpreted as "until". One final thing to keep in mind: Russian does have a preposition meaning "until": до+Gen. Don't confuse this preposition, which can only have a noun or noun phrase object, with the conjunction which connects a subordinate phrase. The until in I don't work until next week is a preposition with next week its object. Here are a few examples to mull over. Read them carefully, comparing them with the translations and notice how the meaning of пока . . . не plus the perfective somehow makes sense, meaning in the sentence above, something like "while Simone does not successfully arrive at home." Митя спокойно спал, пока профессор читал лекцию. Mitya slept peacefully while his professor lectured. Митя спокойно спал, пока профессор не прочитал лекцию. Mitya slept peacefully until the professor finished lecturing. Даря читала газету, пока Маша убирала комнату. Darya read the paper while Masha cleaned up her room. Маша читала газету, пока сестра не убрала комнату. Masha read the newspaper until her sister finished cleaning up the room.