Прагматика

Syllable

Russian tolerates a wider range of consonant clusters in onset position than English does. The biconsonantal onsets in English are permissible in Russian: pnji ‘stumps’, knjiga ‘book’, gnom ‘gnome’, vnuk ‘grandson’. Having three consonants in the onset is typical for Russian as well, and the clusters are more diverse than the English ones. In addition to those clusters that are permissible in English (spr-, spl-, str-, skr-, skl-, skw- (skv- in Russian), Russian allows the following tri-consonantal clusters: stl-, spr-, zdr-, zbr-, zbl-, zgr-, zgl-, zgn-, vzv-, etc. Moreover, the possible onset in Russian can be even more complex as it tolerates up to four consonants at the beginning of the syllable. The permissible quad-consonantal clusters are: fspl-, fstr-, vzdr-,vzgr-, fsxl-, etc.

Regarding coda, in Russian there is a rule of final devoicing, which leads all the voiced obstruents to become voiceless, e.g. xlep (Nom. sg.) while xleba (Nom. pl.) and xlebu (Dat. sg.) `bread.' Thus, Russian students studying English mispronounce [bet] for bed [bed], and [bek] for beg [beg].

Prepositions in English and Russian

There exists a preposition in English with no equivalent in Russian. For instance, the Russian equivalents of the following English sentences lack any preposition.

This book is written by famous English writer. (English)

Kniga napisana znamenitim angliyskim pisatelem. (Russian)

In English when we say “on” we are referring to a surface relationship and when we use “in” we mean inside a 3D object. In English the words “tree” and “picture” take the preposition “in”. However, in Russian “derevo” and “kartina” take the surface preposition “na ”. 

For example: The are flowers ON the picture ( Russian mistake ) The are flowers IN the picture ( Correct usage )
Russians also have a tendency to use “on” with words like “concert”. The correct preposition to use here is “at”, e.g. “I can’t speak now! I’m AT a concert and the music’s really loud!” English also uses “in” about sun and rain, e.g. “Singing in the rain” and “Lazing in the sun”. Russian uses “pod” in these contexts so Russian speakers often make the mistake of saying “under the sun/rain”.

Another interesting mistake is with “in/to”. Russian uses the preposition “v” to describe place (where?) and direction (where to?), whereas English uses “in” for the former and “to” for the latter. This may seem like an elementary mistake but it is an easy one to make. Here’s an example:

“I went IN England last summer.” (Russian mistake)
“I went TO England last summer.” (Correct usage)

Direct and Indirect Questions

In the Russian language, direct questions differ from indirect questions due to intonation pattern. In direct questions there is a rising intonation, contrary, in indirect questions the intonation is falling.

For example: Kuda ti idyesh? (Intonation is raised

Where you going to?

Where are you going? On sprosil kuda ti idyesh. (Intonation is lowered) He asked where you going to. He asked me where Im going. Since in the Russian language there is no syntactic order change, we may state that error occurance takes place due to overgeneralization of the English syntactic inversion rule. ** I can’t say what did I do yesterday. ** I told him where did I put his wallet ** I don’t remember what was the weather like yesterday. Category 1. Words that are similar or identical in meaning in English and Russian, but are different in form. Ear – uho Wall- stena Table- stol Bird- ptica A huge number of words can be categorize under this category. Category 2. Convergence. For instance, the word mother-in-low has two equivalence in Russian: tesha and svekrov’. The word horse, has two equivalent in the Russian language. It could be loshad’ and kon’. The word animal, has three equivalent words in Russian language. They are as follows: jivotnoye, skotina, tvar’. Category 3. Divergence. Simple lexical split: Ruka- hand and arm; Noga- foot and leg. Multiple lexical split: Tuman- fog, haze and mist; jit’- live, reside, dwell, lodge; plit’- swim, float, drift, sail; puteshestvie- travel, voyage, tour. Category 4. Cognates: psychology (psihologiya); chaos ( haos); pneumonia (pnevmaniya); state (shtat); student (student); rose (roza). Category 5. Deceptive Cognates Sympathise/Simpotizirovat’(to be attracted); perspective/perspektiva (opportunity); loyalty/loyal’nost’ ( in negative hue)