# Consonant mutations - variations



## eni8ma

I have found the basic rules for consonant mutations, namely:

for stems ending п, б, ф, в, м - add л
for stems ending д, з, г - change last letter to ж
for stems ending т, ц, к - change last letter to ч
for stems ending с, х - change last letter to ш
for stems ending ст, ск - change last letter to щ

However ... there seem to be variations, some of which happen enough to make me suppose there are sub-rules.  Others seem, maybe, to be one-offs, so just a question of noting the quirk and learning it as is.

Examples:
Forming comparative of these adjectives:
бли*зк*ий -> бли*ж*е
ни*зк*ий -> ни*ж*е
у*зк*ий -> у*ж*е

The stems end in зк.

The rules state that the final к would change to ч, but I am guessing that a sub-rule says that if the preceding letter is also a letter that mutates, then that letter is the one that decides which mutation happens.

In this case, the preceding letter is з, so the whole combination changes to ж.

This hypothetical sub-rule also fits this case:
ре*дк*ий -> ре*ж*е (д dictates a change to ж)

However, consider:
поз*дн*ий -> поз*ж*е
the last letter in the stem is н, which does not mutate (according to the rules I have found so far).

Also, it seems that if the stem ends in ок, then the ок is dropped, and the rules are applied to what remains of the stem:
шир*ок*ий -> шире
выс*ок*ий -> выше

Even more of a mystery are these ones:
мел*к*ий -> мел*ьч*е
дал*ёк*ий -> дал*ьш*е
дол*г*ий -> дол*ьш*е
тон*к*ий -> тон*ьш*е
ран*н*ий -> ран*ьш*е

к normally changes to ч, which it did for мел*к*ий, but not for тон*к*ий
г normally changes to ж.
н is not in the mutation table.

I am guessing that the reason for the soft sign has something to do with the л and н that precede the last letter in each case; but where did ш come from? and why did ран*н*ий change at all?

Do I just learn these as variations, or are there extra rules somewhere?


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## eni8ma

So ... I've worked out what поз*дн*ий -> поз*ж*е seems to be about.

The original base of the word is зад - "rear, back", from which the adjective задний, then поз*дн*ий, meaning late, or "bringing up the rear" 
So, because the н was only inserted to make the adjective, it is not really part of the root, so д mutates to ж, as per the rules.

I have remembered that adjectives that end in *н*ий are declined differently, so perhaps that is also the case when making the short form.

Still, ран*н*ий remains a mystery, because even the original word ends in ь (рань).

I suppose somewhere, there is a rule for adding -ок to words, so that would explain why the -ок is dropped when making the comparative.

Update: found it - the diminutive form - is it always the case that a word ending in -ок will be a diminutive?


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## Maroseika

eni8ma said:


> S
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> o ... I've worked out what поз*дн*ий -> поз*ж*е seems to be about.
> 
> The original base of the word is зад - "rear, back", from which the adjective задний, then поз*дн*ий, meaning late, or "bringing up the rear"
> 
> 
> 
> Поздний and зад are not cognates. Поздний is a cognate of Latin post (after), and its Proto-Slavic form was *роzdъ.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Update: found it - the diminutive form - is it always the case that a word ending in -ок will be a diminutive?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> -ок is really diminutive suffix, but it also can be part of the stem: рынок, ток, etc. It also can be a suffix with another function than diminuting: взяток, участок, знаток.
> 
> As for your observation, it is called чередование (interchange of consonants).
Click to expand...


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## Maroseika

eni8ma said:


> Examples:
> Forming comparative of these adjectives:
> бли*зк*ий -> бли*ж*е
> ни*зк*ий -> ни*ж*е
> у*зк*ий -> у*ж*е
> 
> The stems end in зк.



К is suffix, so the stem ends in з. Therefore this is з > ж change and к doesn't take part in the process (cf. друг - друзья - дружба).

Thus the full chain is г-ж-з (бог - боже, дорогой - дороже, дерюга - дерюжка, князь - княжеский, угроза - угрожать).
Maybe this will be useful for you.


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## eni8ma

Maroseika said:


> К is suffix, so the stem ends in з.



I see. It will take time to learn when the final part of a word is a suffix or not.



Maroseika said:


> Maybe this will be useful for you.



It's all in Russian! I am a beginner - I can't read that at all - anything in English?


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## eni8ma

Maroseika said:


> As for your observation, it is called чередование (interchange of consonants).



Thanks for the Russian name.  In English books that explain Russian language, it is called consonant mutation (their name for it, not mine).

Again, that reference is all in Russian - beyond me at this point


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## eni8ma

Maroseika said:


> eni8ma said:
> 
> 
> 
> -ок is really diminutive suffix, but it also can be part of the stem: рынок, ток, etc. It also can be a suffix with another function than diminuting: взяток, участок, знаток.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I had already noticed that -ок can be a diminutive suffix.
> 
> When it is some other kind of suffix, what is the meaning? I have scoured various websites looking for that suffix, and can't find it anywhere.
> 
> Also, in this context, I am asking about adjectives. I suppose it is just a question of getting to know which adjectives have a suffix and which don't.
> 
> Most of the adjectives I have asked about end in *к*ий or *н*ий (except дол*г*ий). I know that declining adjectives that end *н*ий has it's own rules.
> 
> Anyhow, for now, I'll just have to learn these as they are, and find out what causes the changes later down the track.
> 
> Had been hoping someone could explain it in English, and/or point me to a site that does.
Click to expand...


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## ahvalj

The manuals usually tend to simplify the complicated historical relationships, quite often in a linguistically incorrect way. The 99% of Russian consonant changes are results of palatalizations, i. e. influence of the consonant [j] or the vowels _ and [e]. An almost identical process happened in English a few centuries ago in French and Latin borrowings, when [j] was merged with t, d, s and z: 'press' - 'pressure', 'pleasant' - 'pleasure', 'depart' - 'departure', etc. Some centuries earlier Anglo-Saxon [k] and [g:] became [tʃ] and [dʒ], like in 'child' and 'bridge'.

So, the influence of [j] gives us:
пй, бй, вй > пль, бль, вль (and later also фй>фль in a few neologisms)
тй, дй > ч/щ, ж/жд (ч and ж in East Slavic words, щ and жд in South Slavic ones, since the modern Russian has both heritages)
сй, зй > ш, ж
кй, гй, хй > ч, ж, ш
ск, ст, зг, зд > щ, ж/жд (likewise, ж in East Slavic and жд in South Slavic words). All this happened around the 5-8th centuries, when the Slavic languages were already separated, and the results somehow vary between slavic dialects and sometimes even within a single language. In Russian examples are especially evident in verbs (present tense, past passive participle and derivatives on «-ение») and in the comparative degrees of the adjectives and adverbs (on «-е»): «лечу, вижу, люблю, оплачен, тише, громче».

The palatalization before [e] and  affected only к, г and х, which originally gave ч, ж, х like with й. This is called first slavic palatalization, it was the oldest one and it was completed before the 3-4th centuries. (Actually, another one took place a few thousand years before, but you won't see these alternations in the modern language). The results are the same across all Slavic languages. Examples are «человек, жена, точить, служить, сушить».

Later, around the 5-7th centuries the new [e] and  formed from earlier diphthongs, so in most dialects к, г, and х changed again, but this time differently across the Slavic word. This is called the second slavic palatalization. In Russian they mostly gave ц, зь and сь, but in the North-Western Russian dialects к, г, and х persisted and later spread into the literary language, that is why we have now «руке», «ноге», «сохе» instead of «руце», «нозе», «сосе» of most other Slavic languages (and less for you to learn). However «цена, друзья, серый».

Also, a third palatalization took place after . The long [i:] is preserved in the modern Russian, while the short  either gave «е» or disappeared. This also happened around the 5-7th centuries and somehow differently across the Slavic dialects. The Russian results are «ц, зь/з and сь» («красавица, дельце, письмецо, созерцать, нельзя, польза»), though there are many words without this palatalization («черника, мышка, зеркало»). In one case the literary Russian has three reflexes: «льгота» without the third palatalization, «нельзя» with the East Slavic result and «польза» with the South Slavic result.

Now, to your questions about the adjectives. The original situation was ruled by the regular change of the consonants before [j]: «тихий — тише», «простой — проще», «поздний — позже». The problem arises with the suffix «к»: in most cases this suffix was added to the adjective much later and had a grammatical, not lexical, meaning, so the comparative degree of the adjectives kept forming without it, directly from the root. This is still a rule for many (most?) old adjectives with this suffix.

The forms on «-ьше» have the same origin, simply from another case form. The original marker of the comparative degree was [jes]/[jis~is]: the longer [jes] in the masculine and neuter nominatives, and the shorter [jis~is] elsewhere (the entire feminine paradigm, the entire plural and dual, and most cases in the masculine/neuter singular). With time, this was becoming less transparent to the speakers, and this has eventually made the declension of the comparative degree disappear almost completely. In most cases the neuter nominative has won («выше»), sometimes the stem of the oblique cases («тоньше»), occasionally the declension has persisted in a normalized form («больше — больший, меньше — меньший»; «выше — высший» with an erroneous «с», should have been «вышший»).

An example of how these adjectives looked in the Proto-Slavic. 
«Прост» was 'prostos'; «проще» - 'prostjes'; «простей-» in «простейший» was prosteejes. Here everything is regular. The longer '-eejes' is present in some simple adjectives and in the majority of the derived ones, it is probably originally an adverbial form: the adjectival '-jes' was added to the adverbial ending '-ee'.
«Высокий» was 'uupsos', later with a suffix, 'uupsokos'; «выше» was 'uupsjes', also just a small irregularity with the addition of '-ok'.
«Далёкий» was 'daališ' or 'daaljos', later 'daaljokos'; hence 'daaljes' (not preserved in the modern language), 'daaljišes' on the Nom. Pl. mac. that influenced the modern «дальше» (š from s secondarily, it is not a palatalization since this old š was hard, later it merged with the new soft š, became soft, too, and finally both became hard in the modern Russian), and 'daaleejes', a prototype of the modern «далее»._


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## William Stein

This text will probably seem incredibly simplistic after ahvalj''s excellent dissertation, but you may find it helpful:
http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/russian/tutorials/0004.html

The author claims that "The rules for consonant mutation in Russian are very simple", which makes me suspicious. If you ask me, the only thing simple about Russian is that it is "simply insanely complex". If you think consonant mutation is bad, wait until you try to figure out the patterns for stress changes in verbs and adjectives. It's almost completely unpredictable as far as I can tell and the Russians don't bother to write the stress marks because it's supposedly "obvious" . I guess it's just as difficult for Russians reading English, too, since we have unpredictable stress, as well, but it seems even more complex in Russian.


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## yoysl

ahvalj said:


> The 99% of Russian consonant changes are results of palatalizations, i. e. influence of the consonant [j] or the vowels _ and [e]._


_
Side note: in the English-language tradition, the changes bj > bl', pj > pl', vj > vl', and other (C)Cj sequences are referred to as jodizations; only the k, g, x before / after front vowels are known as palatalizations.


ahvalj said:



			тй, дй > ч/щ, ж/жд (ч and ж in East Slavic words, щ and жд in South Slavic ones, since the modern Russian has both heritages)
...
ск, ст, зг, зд > щ, ж/жд (likewise, ж in East Slavic and жд in South Slavic words).
		
Click to expand...

This is one more thing that wasn't asked about in the original post, but might as well be explained in more detail. What ahvalj means here is that Russian (more so than any other Slavic langauge) has incorporated a number of Church Slavonic words into the standard language. Because of this, you get some ostensibly irregular consonant alternations, viz. those listed by ahvalj as South Slavic ones. This is why, for example, you have род 'birth/kin/etc.', рождать 'to birth', but also рожать 'to birth, colloquial'; горожанин 'town-dweller' but гражданин 'resident'; горячий 'hot ' but горящий 'burning' (and similarly, будучи 'being' but будущий 'the future' and текучий 'fluid' but текущий 'flowing'); ходить 'to walk' -- хожу 'I walk', but хождение 'walking'; водить 'to lead' -- вожу 'I lead', but вождь 'chief'; etc. I realize some of these you can just interpret as distinct suffixes (such as -чи(й) vs. -щий), but etymologically they are the same (the consonants in -чи(й) and -щий are jodizations of the third person plural non-past marker -т, as in горить, горя-т > горя-щ-ий / горя-ч-ий, if you're curious ... ). (The CS layer of Russian also explains other "irregularities," such as небо 'sky' but нёбо 'palate (like in your mouth)'; падеж 'case (in language)', but падёж 'cattle plague'. The CS versions as a rule are "classier" words.)



William Stein said:



			If you think consonant mutation is bad, wait until you try to figure out the patterns for stress changes in verbs and adjectives. It's almost completely unpredictable as far as I can tell and the Russians don't bother to write the stress marks because it's supposedly "obvious" .
		
Click to expand...


It's not entirely unpredictable, but you're right, it's complicated. If you're interested, you can read about it (and many many more things about Russian!) in Alаn Timberlake's A Reference Grammar of Russian. Everything's "obvious" when you speak a language natively. Foreigners can get used to it, though. (But if you want a language with "easy" stress patterns, try Polish, Czech, or Macedonian ... )_


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## ahvalj

yoysl said:


> etymologically they are the same (the consonants in -чи(й) and -щий are jodizations of the third person plural non-past marker -т, as in горить, горя-т > горя-щ-ий / горя-ч-ий, if you're curious ... )


True for jodizations but not quite so for the semantics: the original indo-european nt-forms were verbal adjectives, and in all languages except the Baltic group these forms were included into the paradigm as markers of the 3rd person plural. So, etymologically these participles are older than the verbal endings. Exactly the same occurred in the Baltic-Finnic languages: the pa-forms, originally the verbal adjectives, became both participles and 3rd person markers (both in the singular and plural): in Finnish 'menevät' means both «идут» and «идущие» (p>b>v in the uneven syllables, later generalized through the paradigm).


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## eni8ma

Well!  It'll take a while to digest all that!

I did already know the basic rules:


eni8ma said:


> I have found the basic rules for consonant mutations, namely:
> 
> for stems ending п, б, ф, в, м - add л
> for stems ending д, з, г - change last letter to ж
> for stems ending т, ц, к - change last letter to ч
> for stems ending с, х - change last letter to ш
> for stems ending ст, ск - change last letter to щ



However, it seems that although there is an interesting history to the variations, there is no way to categorise or anticipate them.

So the upshot appears to be that until I know the language better, to simply learn by heart the ones that don't fit the basic rule.  As I get more vocab, these points will be clearer.

Thank you


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## yoysl

ahvalj said:


> True for jodizations but not quite so for the semantics: the original indo-european nt-forms were verbal adjectives, and in all languages except the Baltic group these forms were included into the paradigm as markers of the 3rd person plural.



Why aren't Baltic languages the oddballs then? Instead of saying that this feature developed independently in all other IE languages ... or am I misunderstanding?




eni8ma said:


> it seems that although there is an interesting history to the variations, there is no way to categorise or anticipate them.



We CAN categorize them though! But you're right, we can't _anticipate_ them. But if we could, it'd be boring.


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## ahvalj

yoysl said:


> Why aren't Baltic languages the oddballs then? Instead of saying that this feature developed independently in all other IE languages ... or am I misunderstanding?



Well, nobody knows. What we have is the above-mentioned distribution and a definite tendency in the late Indo-European towards using the nt-forms in the Pl. 3 (instead or along with the older r-forms, which are confined to the Mediopassive or Perfect in the documented languages). In general, the Baltic verb is very innovative, so the Pl. 3 could have disappeared secondarily, but this has to be demonstrated and not just speculated. On the other hand, the parallel evolution is extremely typical across the languages, so there is nothing odd in the idea that nt-forms were included in the paradigms independently in each branch.

The problem with the historical linguistics is that, unlike virtually any other science, it operates with a finite amount of data. Unless we get a time machine or find new texts, almost everything is already known. Yes, the modern dialects can be analyzed and re-analyzed, and sometimes it yields good results (e. g., the progress in the Baltic and Slavic accentuation in the 70-80-s has changed the concept of the Indo-European accentuation considerably), but generally what remains to the investigator is the refinement and the re-interpretation of what is already known. It is not palaeontology, where every day something new is found in the rocks or in the existing collections.


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## 涼宮

Good evening!

I have a doubt about consonant mutations. I have the same rules as *eni8ma*, but I don't understand why some verbs simply don't stick to that rule and especially I don't get when I should use *у* or *ю* (1rt and 2nd conjugation) and also* ят/ат*. Is there any rule or is it arbitrary? 

For example, the verb бегать, according to the consonant mutation rule* г > ж,* it should be conjugated as бежу but it is in fact бегаю, first I thought it was because the stress is on бе and then I tried with помогать but it also doesn't use ж either but just г, помогаю. Also работать doesn't follow the consonant mutation, т > ч. But тратить(2nd conjugation)  does follow the rule. Now, I don't know what is what anymore. 

Is that rule not absolute or is it just that I found irregular verbs? When am I supposed to use *у* or *ю *in the 1st person singular and *ят/ат? *I think it has to do with the consonant mutation, but I haven't found any website that tells me about it.

Thanks in advance!


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## yoysl

работать, бегать, and помогать are completely regular. They are 1st conjugation verbs in -a-, which never undergo consonant mutations. These conjugate as работаю, работаешь, ... работают. Generally you only expect consonant mutations in 2nd conjugation verbs, which generally are in -и-, such as тратить (трачу, etc.).

There are a handful of 1st conjugation verbs that you can call irregular and do exhibit consonant mutations when conjugated in the 2nd & 3rd p. sg. and 1st & 2nd p. pl. These are verbs like мочь: могу, мо*ж*ешь, мо*ж*ет, мо*ж*ем, мо*ж*ете, могут. You should think of these as irregular, not the ones in -a-. 

*у / ю. *Use the former after hard consonants and ч, ж, ш, щ. Use the latter after soft consonants and vowels. In general, 1st conjugation verbs will use у and 2nd will take ю (unless the stem ends in ч, ж, ш, щ).
*
ат / ят.* These are the 3rd pl. endings for 2nd conjugation verbs. The former is used only when the stem ends in an historically soft consonant (ч, ж, etc.), e.g. лежат. Everywhere else, use the latter. When doubt and the stem of the verb is in -и-, use the latter. The 1st conjugation 3rd sg. never end in one of these; they always end in -ут/ -ют (again, you'll be able to tell which by looking at whether the stem ends in a hard or soft consonant; in general you'll use the latter).

Hope that helps. Slavic morphophonology is tricky, but you'll get the hang of it. It sounds like you should study what criteria differentiate the two conjugations. You also need to understand the difference between hard and soft consonants.


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## 涼宮

yoysl said:


> They are 1st conjugation verbs in -a-, *which never undergo consonant mutations*. These conjugate as работаю, работаешь, ... работают. Generally you only expect consonant mutations in 2nd conjugation verbs, which generally are in -и-, such as тратить (трачу, etc.).
> 
> Hope that helps. Slavic morphophonology is tricky, but you'll get the hang of it.



Thank you very much! That is what I needed to know!

Those are the exact details I want to know  Most websites I bump into about Slavic languages simply don't bother much to go into details and I hate that


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