# строить/строй



## Xavier61

Всем привет. I don't understand why we must write "строй" in the imperative form of the verb "строить". Why й and not normal и?
Context: " и не строй мне глазки" from a (uninteresting) song. 
Спасибо заранее.


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## HotIcyDonut

No rules, each form is just to be remembered, they're unpredicrable:

Курить > кури
Бурить > бури
Дурить > дури
Чинить > чини
Брить > брей
Клеить > клей
Строить > строй
Пить > пей
Писать ("to pee/piss") > писай
Писать ("to write") > пиши
Чесать > чеши
Дёргать > дёрни
Сливать > слей
Коверкать > коверкай
Хуячить/хуярить (obscene slangy form of "to beat/hit/strike" or "work too hard") > хуячь/хуярь

I guess you can find some patterns if you have a grand vocabulary and look at verbs yourself long enough, but generally no, ee aren't taught rules to form imperative verbforms in our schoolbooks, we just know right forms by intuition somehow. I guess non-native speakers should just learn these ones separately. If you learn enough verbs, you'll be able to learn their forms intuitively.


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## Xavier61

Thank you. Maybe I should have phrased my question otherwise.
Why "строить" is not written with й, as "стройка" and many other words with the same root?


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## HotIcyDonut

No verbs ending in "йть" exist. Й is a consonant, not a vowel. "ть" should be preceded by a vowel.


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## Xavier61

HotIcyDonut said:


> No verbs ending in "йть" exist. Й is a consonant, not a vowel. "ть" should be preceded by a vowel.


Yes, you are right, now that I think about it. I've never seen ending "-йть". But now I wonder why the past is written "строило", maybe *"стройло" is not allowed  for some reason?


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## HotIcyDonut

Xavier61 said:


> Yes, you are right, now that I think about it. I've never seen ending "-йть". But now I wonder why the past is written "строило", maybe *"стройло" is not allowed  for some reason?



Verbs don't end like this, this "й" doesnt't work with a consonant after itself in verbs, whether in past, present, future tenses or infinitive mood.

Строил (not стройл)
Строила (not стройла)
Строили (not стройли)
Строит (not стройт)
Построит (not постройт)

The only case when "й + consonant" works is in imperative mood of verbs (those that end with й in imperative singular) in plural

Пей воду ("drink water" said to one person) > пейте воду (to ≥2 persons)

It may also work in singular imperative for verbs with "ся".

E.g. verb "каяться":

"Кайся, грешник!" (repent, sinner!) > "кайтесь, грешники!" (repent, sinners!)


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## Vovan

HotIcyDonut said:


> курить > кури
> <...>


Let's take HotIcyDonut's examples:
_Брить - брею (-ЙУ) - брей!
Клеить - клею (-ЙУ) - клей!
Пить - пью (-ЙУ) - пей!
Сливать - сливаю (-ЙУ) - слей!
Коверкать - коверкаю (-ЙУ) - коверкай!_​We see that where there's a hidden [j] in the root, the imperative will end in *-й.*
There might be exceptions, of course.


Also, there exist near-homographs in respect of [-ои] and [-ой] at the end of verbs:
_Пои́ её тёплым молоком. (поить)
Пой громче! (петь)
Крои́ по данной линии. (кроить)
Крой козырем. (крыть)_​And yes, here you see some exceptions (and the reason for them to exist).


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## Sobakus

The /и/ is a suffix which is obligatory for roots ending in a consonant - you can't have consonant endings sticking to a consonant root. The stem ends in -й, and since there's no Vйи in Russian, it's absorbed by the suffix -и-. Where the suffix is /э/ or /а/, the -й remains, orthographically represented as -е- (бегает) and -я- (стоял). With 1p. sg. and 3p. pl. it's part of the -ю or -я (стою, стоят; вою, воют). When there's no suffix, the stem-final -й is there for all to see.


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## Xavier61

HotIcyDonut said:


> Verbs don't end like this, this "й" doesnt't work with a consonant after itself in verbs, whether in past, present, future tenses or infinitive mood.
> 
> Строил (not стройл)
> Строила (not стройла)
> Строили (not стройли)
> Строит (not стройт)
> Построит (not постройт)
> 
> The only case when "й + consonant" works is in imperative mood of verbs (those that end with й in imperative singular) in plural
> 
> Пей воду ("drink water" said to one person) > пейте воду (to ≥2 persons)
> 
> It may also work in singular imperative for verbs with "ся".
> 
> E.g. verb "каяться":
> 
> "Кайся, грешник!" (repent, sinner!) > "кайтесь, грешники!" (repent, sinners!)


That is what confuses me, the й in imperative but и  in the past. I was comparing the conjugations of строить and споить, and I saw that imperative was строй/стройте but спои/споите, so I expected the past to be *стройли and споили, only for logical consistency. I had the wrong idea that when 2 vowels formed a diphthong we should write й.


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## Xavier61

Sobakus said:


> The /и/ is a suffix which is obligatory for roots ending in a consonant - you can't have consonant endings sticking to a consonant root. The stem ends in -й, and since there's no Vйи in Russian, it's absorbed by the suffix -и-. Where the suffix is /э/ or /а/, the -й remains, orthographically represented as -е- (бегает) and -я- (стоял). With 1p. sg. and 3p. pl. it's part of the -ю or -я (стою, стоят; вою, воют). When there's no suffix, the stem-final -й is there for all to see.


The last part of your message is interesting, but I am not sure to understand the first part ("you can't have consonant endings sticking to a consonant root"). I am thinking about забудьте, встретьте, сядьте and some others.


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## Xavier61

Vovan said:


> Let's take HotIcyDonut's examples:
> _Брить - брею (-ЙУ) - брей!
> Клеить - клею (-ЙУ) - клей!
> Пить - пью (-ЙУ) - пей!
> Сливать - сливаю (-ЙУ) - слей!
> Коверкать - коверкаю (-ЙУ) - коверкай!_​We see that where there's a hidden [j] in the root, the imperative will end in *-й.*
> There might be exceptions, of course.
> 
> 
> Also, there exist near-homographs in respect of [-ои] and [-ой] at the end of verbs:
> _Пои́ её тёплым молоком. (поить)
> Пой громче! (петь)
> Крои́ по данной линии. (кроить)
> Крой козырем. (крыть)_​And yes, here you see some exceptions (and the reason for them to exist).


Good examples. Now I see that imperative formation is very logical, the difference in pronunciation of пои/пой is reflected in writing. Why that same difference in pronunciation (stress) is not reflected in the past, that is, is there a reason that explains why not to write *стройли?


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## Vovan

Xavier61 said:


> why not to write *стройли?


(Above, I wasn't precise enough when I wrote about the "root" of a word; it should have been the "stem", i.e. root + suffixes/interfixes.)

It looks like past forms are derived right from infinitives:
_строить - строил
петь - пел
поить - поил
крыть - крыл
кроить - кроил_​...while (some) imperatives from stems of some present forms:
_стираю [-йу] - стирай!
строю [-йу] - строй!
пою [-йу] - пой! ("петь") or пои! ("поить"; here the form is derived from the infinitive)
_​(Sorry if I misunderstand your question.)


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## Xavier61

Vovan said:


> (Above, I wasn't precise enough when I wrote about the "root" of a word; it should have been the "stem", i.e. root + suffixes/interfixes.)
> 
> It looks like past forms are derived right from infinitives:
> _строить - строил
> петь - пел
> поить - поил
> крыть - крыл
> кроить - кроил_​...while (some) imperatives from stems of some present forms:
> _стираю [-йу] - стирай!
> строю [-йу] - строй!
> пою [-йу] - пой! ("петь") or пои! ("поить"; here the form is derived from the infinitive)
> _​(Sorry if I misunderstand your question.)


No, you did understand it. You hinted at some hidden *j* in some verbal stems, that may explain a lot. I am afraid that my question was  not very clear. Basically,  my problem is that I don't understand why some verbal forms have й and others have и: строите and стройте are written differently but pronounced identically.


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## Vovan

Xavier61 said:


> I don't understand why some verbal forms have й and others have и: строите and стройте are written differently but *pronounced identically*.


But they aren't actually!
"Стройте" sounds shorter, as it has just two syllables.
стройте: ••
строите: •••​


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## Xavier61

Vovan said:


> But they aren't actually!
> "Стройте" sounds shorter, as it has just two syllables.
> стройте: ••
> строите: •••​


And what about строить? It has one syllable or two? Forvos is not very helpful, some people say it in one syllable, other few say it in two.


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## Vovan

Xavier61 said:


> And what about строить? It has one syllable or two?


It has two!
_Стро-ить.
Строй-те.
Стро-и-те._​


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## Awwal12

Vovan said:


> ...while (some) imperatives from stems of some present forms


Sadly, imperatives cannot be simply deduced even from the present tense stems (which they all do utilize), due to many historical phonetic changes. Cf. пью - пей, for instance (which in Old Russian was *пию - *пий).


Xavier61 said:


> строите and стройте are written differently but pronounced identically


Normally, they are pronounced differently. However, the VйС-VиC merger, which results in the loss of one unstressed syllable, does exist in some spoken varieties of Russian (sometimes leading to "во́ин" being misspelled as "войн", etc.).


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## Rosett

It may be interesting to note that there's also a verb "строи́ть" (homograph.) Its imperative form is "строи́(те)".


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## Awwal12

Rosett said:


> It may be interesting to note that there's also a verb "строи́ть" (homograph.) Its imperative form is "страивай(те)", despite the explanations given above.


Страивай is (unsurprisingly) an imperative of страивать. Строи́ть has строи́ respectively ("Полная акцентуированная парадигма по А. А. Зализняку").


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## Sobakus

Xavier61 said:


> The last part of your message is interesting, but I am not sure to understand the first part ("you can't have consonant endings sticking to a consonant root"). I am thinking about забудьте, встретьте, сядьте and some others.


Etymologically, I believe the unstressed imperative "ending" -ь used to be -и (just like with the infinitive -ть). Synchronically, you're right and there are infinitives formed without a suffix as well (класть <- клад-ть), and furthermore the -е- in бегает is part of the ending, not a suffix (that's -а-). There are even two verbs with athematic endings (ест, даст).

I guess the simplest explanation is that with строить or строит, the -и- is a suffix in the first case and part of the ending (thematic vowel) in the second case tacked onto the root строй-. On the other hand, the imperative of consonant-stem verbs stressed on the root doesn't have a vocalic ending or a suffix, but that in essence the stem is changed (the last consonant palatalises). Since by convention the etymological йь is spelt as й (unlike say чь and шь), you get the same bare root in -й. Only if the 1p. sg. were stressed on the ending would you have a stressed vocalic imperative ending -и. To make it even shorter: if grammatically there's an и, then there's an и orthographically.

Here's a handy reference: The Imperative Mood  | Russian language grammar on RussianLearn.com.


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## Xavier61

Sobakus said:


> Etymologically, I believe the unstressed imperative "ending" -ь used to be -и (just like with the infinitive -ть). Synchronically, you're right and there are infinitives formed without a suffix as well (класть <- клад-ть), and furthermore the -е- in бегает is part of the ending, not a suffix (that's -а-). There are even two verbs with athematic endings (ест, даст).
> 
> I guess the simplest explanation is that with строить or строит, the -и- is a suffix in the first case and part of the ending (thematic vowel) in the second case tacked onto the root строй-. On the other hand, the imperative of consonant-stem verbs stressed on the root doesn't have a vocalic ending or a suffix, but that in essence the stem is changed (the last consonant palatalises). Since by convention the etymological йь is spelt as й (unlike say чь and шь), you get the same bare root in -й. Only if the 1p. sg. were stressed on the ending would you have a stressed vocalic imperative ending -и. To make it even shorter: if grammatically there's an и, then there's an и orthographically.
> 
> Here's a handy reference: The Imperative Mood  | Russian language grammar on RussianLearn.com.


Thanks, your explanation is very clear, and the link is good. Looks like, the usage of й in Russian is complex (why write гаечный instead of expected *гайчный?)


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## Xavier61

Vovan said:


> It has two!
> _Стро-ить.
> Строй-те.
> Стро-и-те._​


Thank you Vovan for explaining that. I need to train my ear, now I cannot hear any difference between стройте/строите in normal speech, I almost always hear 2 syllables.


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## Xavier61

Vovan said:


> Also, there exist near-homographs in respect of [-ои] and [-ой] at the end of verbs:
> _Пои́ её тёплым молоком. (поить)
> Пой громче! (петь)
> Крои́ по данной линии. (кроить)
> Крой козырем. (крыть)_​And yes, here you see some exceptions (and the reason for them to exist).


Yes, I see the difference, the stress, and I expected it to be consistent, that's why I expected *стройл/споил. Of course, that's no problem for native speakers, who always? know where goes the stress of the Russian words, but it is very unfriendly system for non natives.


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## Vovan

Xavier61 said:


> , who (always?) know where goes the stress of the Russian words


No, we don't always know that for sure , but it usually has to do with noun forms ("без ша́рфа" or "без шарфа́"?).


Xavier61 said:


> I expected it to be consistent, that's why I expected *стройл/споил.


Стро́ить, спои́ть -> стро́ил, спои́л.
Or am I missing something?..


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## Sobakus

Xavier61 said:


> Thanks, your explanation is very clear, and the link is good. Looks like, the usage of й in Russian is complex (why write гаечный instead of expected *гайчный?)


It's not expected at all because the suffix -к/ч- regularly receives a fleeting vowel when not followed by a vowel: you can't have мойк, палк, бабчек, поччный and neither can you have гайчный. Again: the vowel might be reduced in speech to various degrees, but it's the grammar that defines whether it's there or not. It also works in the opposite direction: the name Пётр has two syllables when pronounced.


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## Xavier61

Sobakus said:


> It's not expected at all because the suffix -к/ч- regularly receives a fleeting vowel when not followed by a vowel: you can't have мойк, палк, бабчек, поччный and neither can you have гайчный. Again: the vowel might be reduced in speech to various degrees, but it's the grammar that defines whether it's there or not. It also works in the opposite direction: the name Пётр has two syllables when pronounced.


But we can and do have Трийк, Пайк, Лайпман, and so on. Only in foreign words?
Пётр has two syllables? I don't get it, is it a joke?


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## Awwal12

Xavier61 said:


> But we can and do have Трийк, Пайк, Лайпман, and so on. Only in foreign words?


Wherever it's not *that particular suffix*. Etymologically it's -ьк-/-ък-, you see (or -ьч- and -ъч- before the etymological *и, *ь and *e) , where ь and ъ were vowels; the fate of these vowels depended on their position in the word - they either disappeared entirely or merged with е and о respectively. So we have точка < *тъчька < *тъкька, точек < *тъчькъ < *тъкькъ, точечный < *тъчьчьныи < *тъкькьнъ йь (where "йь" is an ancient 3rd p. pronoun).


Xavier61 said:


> Пётр has two syllables?


As it comes to it, it has:  Пё-тр, with a syllabic r. As a rule of thumb, Russian simply cannot have a consonant followed by "r" in the end of any syllable; if "r" cannot go to the next syllable of the same word, it simply creates a syllable of its own.
Те-ат-ра > те-а-тр; ми-нис-тру > ми-нис-тр.
Л behaves identically (Нью-кас-ла or Нью-ка-сла > Нью-ка-сл).
However, it's not related to the discussed behaviour of the suffixal к.


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## Xavier61

Awwal12 said:


> Wherever it's not *that particular suffix*. Etymologically it's -ьк-/-ък-, you see (or -ьч- and -ъч- before the etymological *и, *ь and *e) , where ь and ъ were vowels; the fate of these vowels depended on their position in the word - they either disappeared entirely or merged with е and о respectively. So we have точка < *тъчька < *тъкька, точек < *тъчькъ < *тъкькъ, точечный < *тъчьчьныи < *тъкькьнъ йь (where "йь" is an ancient 3rd p. pronoun).


The falling of the iers. I have to read again about it, thank you for reminding.


Awwal12 said:


> As it comes to it, it has:  Пё-тр, with a syllabic r. As a rule of thumb, Russian simply cannot have a consonant followed by "r" in the end of any syllable; if "r" cannot go to the next syllable of the same word, it simply creates a syllable of its own.
> Те-ат-ра > те-а-тр; ми-нис-тру > ми-нис-тр.
> Л behaves identically (Нью-кас-ла or Нью-ка-сла > Нью-ка-сл).
> However, it's not related to the discussed behaviour of the suffixal к.


My original question was about syllabification in Russian, so I think we are on topic.  About Пётр, I know that sonorants (r,l,n,m) can behave as  vocalic sounds in many languages, and be the nucleus of a syllable, but I had the wrong idea that this was not the case in Russian. I read recently Avanesov's syllabification rules:
"There are three criteria to determine whether a given syllabification is correct (from higher- to lower-priority):
1). One syllable has one and only one vowel.
2). In every syllable the sonority level rises until it reaches the peak — a vowel.
3). A syllable should end with a vowel."
From rule 1 I understood that any syllable in Russian needs a vowel. Your те-ат-ра surprises me, for me it would have been те-а-тра.


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## Sobakus

I disagree that Russian has syllabic consonants: instead, the last syllable of _Пётр_ is the same as _доктор, _namely [ər]. The analysis that every Russian syllable must end with a vowel is impossible because of words like _отчеств_: Russian allows up to 5 consonants in coda if I'm not mistaken, but any liquids inside such a cluster not preceded/followed by a vowel receive a schwa before them whether it's a native word with a historic yer, a native word without one (быстəр), or a borrowed one (бинокəль).

I'd say both analyses of _театра_ are possible, but I'm inclined towards the open syllable one because of the liquid second consonant. If it wasn't a liquid, the two consonants would certainly belong to different syllables.


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## Q-cumber

Sobakus said:


> Russian allows up to 5 consonants in coda if I'm not mistaken...


As in "бодрствовать" (to stay awake), for example.


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## Awwal12

Sobakus said:


> I disagree that Russian has syllabic consonants: instead, the last syllable of _Пётр_ is the same as _доктор, _namely [ər].


As usual, it's merely the matter of our phonemic description. As far as I can tell, phonetically there isn't any objective difference between such combinations in Russian and, say, Czech. The variant with the syllabic /r/ may be preferable for Russian, since we normally don't describe schwa as a separate phoneme in our language; so we would need either to arbitrarily ascribe some other phoneme to that sound (say, /a/) or to rewrite our description of the Russian vowel system altogether; neither variant looks appealing enough.


Q-cumber said:


> As in "бодрствовать" (to stay awake), for example.


That particular cluster is not in the coda. And yes, it's divided between two syllables anyway (-др-ство-).


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## Sobakus

Awwal12 said:


> The variant with the syllabic /r/ may be preferable for Russian, since we normally don't describe schwa as a separate phoneme in our language; so we would need either to arbitrarily ascribe some other phoneme to that sound (say, /a/) or to rewrite our description of the Russian vowel system altogether; neither variant looks appealing enough.



Most (all?) modern analyses differentiate between stressed and unstressed Russian vowel phonemes. For the unstressed ones, 3 to 5 are distinguished, schwa~/a/ being the most undisputed. Whatever you call it, it's the only candidate so there's nothing arbitrary in defining it as such. The other possible unstressed phonemes are /у/, /и/, (/э/ - with yekanye), (/o/ - in радио).


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## Awwal12

Sobakus said:


> Most (all?) modern analyses differentiate between stressed and unstressed Russian vowel phonemes.


I'm sorry, but what analyses are you referring to? Counting unstressed sounds as *separate* phonemes is normally considered unproductive for Russian, since it greatly complicates the phonological description, especially taking into account that there are at least 4 kinds of unstressed positions in our language. The Moscow School traditionally counts 5 vowel phonemes total in Russian, the St.Petersburg School counts 6.
And [ə] in unstressed positions may represent nearly all vowel phonemes except /u/ (well, even /u/ in certain idioms).

P.S.:


Xavier61 said:


> 3). A syllable should end with a vowel."


That rule does look very strange regarding the modern Russian, since it undoubtedly has a lot of closed syllables, including monosyllabic words ending in a consonant or even a group of consonants (так, мол, толк, сон, бук, риск, прыть etc.).


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## Xavier61

Awwal12 said:


> I'm sorry, but what analyses are you referring to? Counting unstressed sounds as *separate* phonemes is normally considered unproductive for Russian, since it greatly complicates the phonological description, especially taking into account that there are at least 4 kinds of unstressed positions in our language. The Moscow School traditionally counts 5 vowel phonemes total in Russian, the St.Petersburg School counts 6.
> And [ə] in unstressed positions may represent nearly all vowel phonemes except /u/ (well, even /u/ in certain idioms).
> 
> P.S.:
> That rule does look very strange regarding the modern Russian, since it undoubtedly has a lot of closed syllables, including monosyllabic words ending in a consonant or even a group of consonants (так, мол, толк, сон, бук, риск, прыть etc.).


Yes, the rules for syllabification in Russian seem not to be well defined.


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## Xavier61

Sobakus said:


> Etymologically, I believe the unstressed imperative "ending" -ь used to be -и (just like with the infinitive -ть).
> ...
> On the other hand, the imperative of consonant-stem verbs stressed on the root doesn't have a vocalic ending or a suffix, but that in essence the stem is changed (the last consonant palatalises). Since by convention the etymological йь is spelt as й (unlike say чь and шь), you get the same bare root in -й. Only if the 1p. sg. were stressed on the ending would you have a stressed vocalic imperative ending -и. To make it even shorter: if grammatically there's an и, then there's an и orthographically.
> 
> Here's a handy reference: The Imperative Mood  | Russian language grammar on RussianLearn.com.


Thank you, Sobakus, very handy the link. Very detailed. 
About the formation of imperative mood, I have 2 doubts:
a) "ляг, лягте" seems very strange. Did it lost the palatalisation or never had it? Sounds a bit odd as imperative.
b) From "пыхать", we have '"я пы́шу" ( и "я пыхаю", but that's another story), so its imperative is пышь или пыши́?


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## Awwal12

Xavier61 said:


> a) "ляг, лягте" seems very strange. Did it lost the palatalisation or never had it? Sounds a bit odd as imperative.


Russian has historically lost a lot of palatalizations by simple morphological analogy. Ляг is not an exception (cf. Ukr. ляж, Bel. ляж, Rus.dial. ляжь).


Xavier61 said:


> b) From "пыхать", we have '"я пы́шу" ( и "я пыхаю", but that's another story), so its imperative is пышь или пыши́?


Zaliznyak says it's пышь (although the temptation to write пыхай is great ). *Пыши́ is impossible as long as the root is stressed (and in пы́хать it actually is); that paradigm looks rather rare anyway (писать, дышать... a lot of similar verbs have got -а́й in the imperative instead).


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## Rosett

Q-cumber said:


> As in "бодрствовать" (to stay awake), for example.


Indeed, Russian morphology allows for up to 6 consecutive consonants in a single word, and up to 10 - in a phrase. The question about syllabification in such words remains open.


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## Rosett

Xavier61 said:


> About the formation of imperative mood, I have 2 doubts:
> a) "ляг, лягте" seems very strange. Did it lost the palatalisation or never had it? Sounds a bit odd as imperative.
> b) From "пыхать", we have '"я пы́шу" ( и "я пыхаю", but that's another story), so its imperative is пышь или пыши́?


«Ляг/лягте» sounds absolutely perfect in the context of morning exercises:

«Если вы в своей квартире,
Лягте на пол, три, четыре...».

«Не пыши жаром, конь, не свищи ноздрями огневыми» is fine, as well.


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## Awwal12

Rosett said:


> «Ляг/лягте» sounds absolutely perfect in the context of morning exercises


"Ляг" sounds absolutely perfect in any context, since it's the only existing imperative form of "лечь" (in standard Russian). What picked Xavier61's attention is that such form should be etymologically impossible.


Rosett said:


> «Не пыши жаром, конь, не свищи ноздрями огневыми» is fine, as well.


In some imitation of dialectal speech - sure thing. But none dictionary contains such form, and for a good reason.


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## Xavier61

Rosett said:


> «Не пыши жаром, конь, не свищи ноздрями огневыми» is fine, as well.





Awwal12 said:


> In some imitation of dialectal speech - sure thing. But none dictionary contains such form, and for a good reason.


Есть в викисловаре  пыхать — Викисловарь


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## Awwal12

Well, Wiktionary is valuable due to its immense amount of information, but essentially it's a wall where anybody can write anything.

The trouble with пыхать is that it's used not so often and almost the only imperative form expected in colloquial speech is пыхай, which is, however, not literate.

P.S.: It's quite telling that nearly all Google Search entries for "пыши" come from such words as semi-occasional affective "пы́ша" (n., from пышка) or Ukrainian "писати"/"писать" written in Russian orthography.


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