Thread: Stress of По

"...играем в волейбол, бродим по лесу."

"Затем по эскалатору спускаюсь вниз."

From two different excercises in my book. In the first example, По is shown with stressed O, whilst in the second it's unstressed. What's the difference? In which situations should По be stressed?

Originally Posted by ski-ops

"...играем в волейбол, бродим по лесу."

"Затем по эскалатору спускаюсь вниз."

From two different excercises in my book. In the first example, По is shown with stressed O, whilst in the second it's unstressed. What's the difference? In which situations should По be stressed?

Sometimes this preposition with the next word can be pronounced like one word with stressed preposition. I.e. "По лесу" can be pronounced as "полесу". But this way of pronunciation is not really necessary. To say "По лесу" with unstressed "По" is also correct and much less risky (more neutral). So the latter way is always recommended for any non-native speaker.

It has to do with historical stress. Some words, like лес, рука, земля and others (you can find lists of fixed phrases like рукá óб руку in grammar books) still show the old pattern. There is a tendency towards entropy in any language, that is, to remove the unusual things that do not fit the general pattern, and the fact that we see it in modern Russian is no surprise. See the first paragraph here for more examples with рука http://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%B0 .

There are odd stress things with verbs as well. One famous one, and I would guess that none of the Russians here would use it, is the verb родиться, which used to have stress on the last syllable. Yes, even in родилась, родился. А complete anomaly among verbs.

Originally Posted by chaika

It has to do with historical stress. Some words, like лес, рука, земля and others (you can find lists of fixed phrases like рукá óб руку in grammar books) still show the old pattern. There is a tendency towards entropy in any language, that is, to remove the unusual things that do not fit the general pattern, and the fact that we see it in modern Russian is no surprise. See the first paragraph here for more examples with рука http://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%B0 .

There are odd stress things with verbs as well. One famous one, and I would guess that none of the Russians here would use it, is the verb родиться, which used to have stress on the last syllable. Yes, even in родилась, родился. А complete anomaly among verbs.

"Родилась" is still commonly used and it isn't an anomaly.

Thanks, I didn't know that stress was still there! An anomaly is something that is totally unusual. End stress like that on a 2nd conjugation verb is an anomaly, in all other verbs the stress falls on the И. There is no other verb that does that. The conjugation of хотеть is an anomaly, combining first- and second-conjugation forms (plural and singular, respectively).

Originally Posted by chaika

Thanks, I didn't know that stress was still there! An anomaly is something that is totally unusual. End stress like that on a 2nd conjugation verb is an anomaly, in all other verbs the stress falls on the И. There is no other verb that does that. The conjugation of хотеть is an anomaly, combining first- and second-conjugation forms (plural and singular, respectively).

Perhaps you are right. There are verbs with the stress on "-лась", it isn't unusual, but I think they are not of a 2nd conjugation. The only one I could remember is "развиться" (is it 2-nd?) and "развилась" is definitely more preferable then "развилась".

Originally Posted by Полуношник

The only one I could remember is "развиться" (is it 2-nd?) and "развилась" is definitely more preferable then "развилась".

"развилAсь" is inacceptable completely. If you say "развилAсь", everybody would hear "развeлAсь" which is different word.

I can remember "прижилАсь". It is correct as well as "прижИлась" but maybe the former case is considered vernacular as well as "родилАсь".

From the school I remember that there are so many verbs with conjugation anomalies that the very idea of conjugation seems to me a bit pointless. Though it is my impression from those days, now I don't remember formal rules.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

"развилAсь" is inacceptable completely.

I wouldn't say so.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

If you say "развилAсь", everybody wouild hear "развeлAсь" which is different word.

And so.

I was talking about verbs that end in -ить. The consonant-stem verbs like вести, жить do have final stress in the plural, which is not uncommon.

Originally Posted by chaika

I was talking about verbs that end in -ить. The consonant-stem verbs like вести, жить do have final stress in the plural, which is not uncommon.

Развить does end in -ить. It has the same root as вить, not вести, and means "to evolve".