Conjugation

Endings and stems; spelling Russian vowels

Every form of a Russian verb has an ending; if the ending is peeled off, the part of the word that is left is called the stem. As a rule, the Russian verb may be said to have two stems: the non-past stem for non-past forms and the past stem for the infinitive and past tense forms:

A Russian verb may also have the particle -ся/-сь attached to it. It always comes at the very end, after the ending. The particle takes the form -ся after a consonant, and the form -сь after a vowel:

As you divide a verb into a stem and an ending, remember three things about the letters я, ю, е, ё, и:

• They indicate the same sounds as а, у, э, о, ы:

• When they follow a vowel letter, they indicate the sound й between two vowels. Very often the dividing line between the stem and ending goes through these letters, so that to show the suffix and the ending you have to ‘spell’ ю as й + у, я as й + а and so on:

• When the letters я, ю, е, ё, и follow a consonant letter they indicate that the consonant is soft. Онќ кричђт ‘they shout’ and онќ говорїт ‘they speak’ have the same ending -ат. After ч it appears as -ат, because of the spelling rules for the hushing consonants ч, щ, ж, ш; after р it appears as -ят, to show that the р is soft. Thus the endings in онќ кричђт, онќ стоїт, онќ говорїт are the same, in spite of the difference in spelling:

Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes

Every stem contains a root, an element that gives rise to a group of related stems. (To take an example from English, the root STA gives rise to stand, stay, stable, stage, restore and so on.) In some Russian verbs, the root makes up the entire stem. In most verbs, however, the stem consists of the root preceded by a prefix and/or followed by a suffix.

Often there are nouns and adjectives made from the same roots as verbs:

Some stems are never used without a prefix, for instance, the stem -КАЗА: there is no such verb as *казать in Russian, but there are many prefixed verbs with this stem:

In the following sections, when we mention stems like КАЗА-, that are never used without a prefix, we’ll put a hyphen in front of them to indicate that something is missing: -КАЗА-.

A stem may have more than one prefix, for example:

A suffix may be part of a larger suffix. For example, the suffix -ОВА- may be a part of the larger suffixes -ИРОВА-, -ИЗОВА-, or even -ИЗИРОВА-:

It is the suffix that determines how the verb conjugates, and for the purposes of conjugation there are just ten verb suffixes in the Russian language (although some of them may appear as parts of larger suffixes). To find out what they are, see the Suffix Inventory.

With a few exceptions, a stem with a prefix conjugates the same way as the same stem without a prefix. So, for the purposes of conjugation, prefixes can be largely ignored. When we say that a stem conjugates in a certain way what we mean is that this stem and all the stems formed by adding a prefix to it conjugate this way.

Prefixes and Conjugation

Prefixes affect conjugation only in these minor ways:

• all perfective verbs with the prefix вы-, and one imperfective verb with the prefix вы- (вІглядеть ‘look like’) are stressed on this prefix in all their forms;
• if a prefix ends with, or consists of, a consonant, and the root begins with, or consists of, two consonants, the vowel о is often inserted between the prefix and the two consonants of the root, thus breaking the sequence of three consonants:

With some verbs, the inserted vowel appears in all forms, even in those that do not meet the “three consonants in a row” condition:

Below is the complete list of Russian verb prefixes.

Suffixes: Stems with and without suffixes; the stem with a full suffix

There are many thousands of Russian verb stems, of which less than a hundred are stems without suffixes. Stems with suffixes fall into large groups that conjugate according to general rules; stems without suffixes fall into small groups that conjugate according to minor rules with many exceptions to them.

When we say that a certain stem has a suffix it does not mean that this suffix is present in all forms of the verb, or that it can be clearly seen in all the forms of the verb. We will use the term stem with a full suffix or full-suffix stem to indicate a stem made up of the root plus the suffix in its complete form. As endings are added to the stem, the suffix may show up in a reduced form, or if it consists of just one vowel, it may disappear altogether. These changes are governed by the rule of likes and unlikes given in 3.2 below.

Adding stems to suffixes: the rule of likes and unlikes

The rule of likes and unlikes shows what happens when endings are added to the full-suffix stem. It makes a single distinction between vowels and consonants. If, at the juncture of the suffix and the ending, the unlikes meet (vowel + consonant or consonant + vowel) then nothing happens, you simply join the stem and ending together:

(Remember that the consonant й + у will be spelled ю, й + а will be spelled я, and so on. Й is the only consonant ending for suffixes.)

Now look at the opposite case: if, at the juncture of the suffix and the ending, the likes meet (vowel + vowel or consonant + consonant), then the first of the likes is dropped:

Note that when a vowel drops out the preceding consonant may change. Consult the Table of Consonant Changes (you may also read about stems and stem changes in greater detail).

The suffix inventory

Listed below are all the verb suffixes, with examples:

• -ают >-ать  АЙ verbs have infinitives in -ать.
• -ивают< >-ивать  All the -ивать verbs are АЙ verbs.
• -љют >-љть ЕЙ verbs have infinitives in -еть. They are all stressed on the suffix.

• -уют< >-овать  All the ОВА verbs are УЙ verbs and conversely.
• Verbs that end in -евать have -юют or, after hushing consonants and Ц, -уют. Among verbs that end in -евать there are some that are not ОВА/УЙ verbs: подозревђть под-о-зр-е-вай-ут ‘suspect’; согревђть согревђют ‘warm up’.

• -нуть >-нут    Remember that to produce the correct past tense forms you have to know whether this is a НУ or a (НУ) verb.
• -нут >-нуть    The prediction does not work for non-suffixed verbs in which Н is not part of a suffix but part of the root: стђнут — стђть; на-дљнут — надљть; начнџт — начђть.

• -ить >-ат/-ят    А or Я depending on spelling (А after hushing consonants). This prediction works for all verbs with the suffix -И. It doesn’t work for monosyllabic non-suffixed stems where -И- is not a suffix but part of the root: пќть — пьєт; гнќть — гниєт ‘rot’; брќться — брљются ‘shave’. Another way of stating this rule would be: all -ить verbs that have more than one syllable are second conjugation.

• -оть >-ют    All the О verbs conjugate the same. This prediction is of limited value for there are only five -о- stems in Russian.

• -зть/-зти< >-зут  Only -З- verbs have З before the Т of the infinitive.

-СЯ verbs

One general fact about -ся verbs is that practically all of them are intransitive, i.e., they are not used with a direct object in the Accusative case.

If you take a -ся verb and peel off -ся, there are two possibilities: either you get another verb, or you get something that is not a Russian word at all. In other words, some verbs are never used without -ся, e.g., боїться ‘fear’, улыбђться ‘smile’. For the majority of -ся verbs, however, there is a corresponding verb without -ся. This verb without -ся is usually transitive, i.e., it is used with a direct object in the Accusative case.

The important practical question is this: if you know the meaning of a verb without –ся, can you predict the meaning of the corresponding verb with –ся? The answer is no, but you can make an educated guess. If it doesn’t work, consult the dictionary.

Some possibilities are illustrated below:

In all the above examples the meaning of the -ся verbs is closely related to the meaning of the corresponding verb without -ся. However, you ought to be prepared for the possibility that the meaning relations are more remote, or even non-existent, for instance:

Sometimes Imperfective -ся verbs are best translated by a passive verb in English:

We don’t recommend using such sentences in your speech — use 3 person plural instead.

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