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The position of stress in noun case forms is a difficult thing to learn, and there are no hard-and-fast rules. However, there are relatively few patterns and there is a rough relationship between stress classes and declension classes, as illustrated below.
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The dictionary 5000 Russian Words and The Russian Dictionary Tree use English capital letters (immediately following the headword) to mark each noun's stress pattern. When a noun has a form with an exceptional stress shift, that form is listed in both of the dictionaries. In the table below, these forms are in parentheses.
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The first letter represents the position of stress in the Singular cases and the second represents stress in the Plural cases. The letter E means stress is on the ending (if any) and S means stress is on the stem. In cases where End stress would fall on the zero ending, stress falls on the preceding vowel (e.g. зљркало SE, GPlur. зеркђл).
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Sometimes the shift in stress entails the change of е to ё, as in женђ - жёны, сестрђ - сёстры. In some cases the stress pattern varies from speaker to speaker, e.g. the Plural of средђ may be E or S; such variation is noted in the dictionaries.
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A useful rule of thumb for two-syllable o-declension nouns is that they are mostly SE or ES (like слћво — словђ or письмћ — пќсьма). Sometimes the patterns are made easy to learn because of semantic groupings of words, e.g. the fall and winter months are end-stressed (сентїбрь through феврђль).
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EE
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EE
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EE
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EE
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ES
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SE
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бћрщ
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нћж
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словђрь
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рукђ (ASg. рџку)
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водђ (ASg. вћду)
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гћрод (NPlur. -ђ)
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врђч
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отљц (е)
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статьї
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средђ (ASg. срљду)
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войнђ
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дћм (NPlur. -ђ)
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гарђж
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падљж
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стћл
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женђ
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нћмер (NPlur. -ђ)
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карандђш
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потолћк (о)
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язІк
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сестрђ
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профљссор (NPlur. -ђ)
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конљц (е)
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продављц (е)
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странђ
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учќтель (NPlur. -ї)
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The letters shown in parentheses are inserted vowels.
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