# Accent in the imperative



## DareRyan

Hello everyone,
In my book, it cleary states that the imperative ending of verb stems ending in consonants is –и and –ите and then states that the accent falls on the same vowel as that of the third person plural. However, it then gives the following example:

Кур*и *and Кур*и*те 

as far as I know the accent on the third person is on the y as in К*у*рят.
Am I mistaken or is the rule or exapmle in the text incorrect?

Thank you.


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## papillon

Hmm..
It's been a while since I learned these rules, but if that's really what the book says, there must be a mistake. 

In all the examples I can think of, the accent in these imperative forms of the verb is on the last *"и" *as in:

 Кури and Курите
помог*и* and помог*и*те

and you are right, the 3rd plural would be К*у*рят, with accent on *у.*
Perhaps someone in this forum with a linguistic background would be able to figure out what that rule was referring to, but I don't undestand this either.


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## DareRyan

Reading ahead in the book myself and making some observations, it seems the accenting of the imperative has more to do with the accent on the infinitive form. As far as I can see, if the accent in the infinitive is on the penultimate syllable the imperative follows suit. However in the cases where the penult is not accented it shifts to the preceeding syllable.

Is there any logic to this or am I merely making up my own rules on the little I have to work with?


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## papillon

I think it would be easier for me if you provided some examples, as I am not sure which verbs you referring to.
Thanks


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## cyanista

It sounds plausible, DR.

Let's take two verbs whose infinitive forms are differently stressed: "в*ы*йти" and "выход*и*ть". 

в*ы*йти - в*ы*йди, в*ы*йдите

выход*и*ть - выход*и*, выход*и*те

Well, your rule seems to work.  This is not to say there may not be exceptions.


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## Thomas1

DareRyan said:
			
		

> Hello everyone,
> In my book, it cleary states that the imperative ending of verb stems ending in consonants is –и and –ите and then states that the accent falls on the same vowel as that of the third person plural. However, it then gives the following example:
> 
> Кур*и *and Кур*и*те
> 
> as far as I know the accent on the third person is on the y as in К*у*рят.
> Am I mistaken or is the rule or exapmle in the text incorrect?
> 
> Thank you.


Does your book provide examples of the stress paradigm it suggests? If so could you please give us some? Does it specifies the verbs that follow the paradigm or it simply generalizes it for all of them?

Tom


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## DareRyan

Unfortunately my book is VERY vague in this respect and only gives the example of one imperative for of the verb "Chitat'" (Excuse the lack of Cyrillic characters this browser doesn't support it) whose imperative is painfully obvious as it is not only accented on the penult in the infinitive and every present imperfective ending, but is also first conjugation and ending in a vowel.

Past that the book breaks verbs down into 3 catagories:

Those in which the penultimate syllable is always accented
Those in which the penultimate syllable is accented for the first person alone 
Those in which the accent stays on the stem (It only mentions first conjugation verbs following this rule)

It gives no valid or concrete rules as to how one accents an infinitive for anything other than a first conjuagtion verb ending in a vowel


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## Anatoli

Unfrtunately, you'll find many different verb patterns in Russian. My advise is to look at different patterns to familiarise (you need proper grammar refernce books with accents) but *learn verbs in their entirety*: infinitive, personal forms, imperative, past tense and both perfective and imperfective forms, gerunds, like you would do when learning English irregular verbs (do - did - done). Not trying to scare you, you need to have an idea. Luckily, there are not many tenses in Russian. Certain verbs will have imperative forms quite different from others. Good Russian dictionaries should give a conjugation pattern as well, you need to check that when purchasing one!


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## papillon

DareRyan said:
			
		

> ...the verb "Chitat'" whose imperative is painfully obvious as it is not only accented on the penult in the infinitive and every present imperfective ending ...


DR, could you clarify something for me?
You are referring to "chitat'" as accented on the penultimate syllable, but the accent is on the last syllable: чит*а*ть.
Are we referring to the same thing?


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## DareRyan

Yes, I apologize, it seems to be another error in this text where it cites the verb as ч*и*тать but then shifts the accent to the final syllable for the conjugation. I think most of this confusion is caused by a very poorly editied primer.


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## Anatoli

I made this table for someone, sharing this with you (if you paste into Excel and choose tab as your delimiter, you should see it in a nicer format):

    (съ)есть    (в*ы*)пить        (съ)есть    (в*ы*)пить
я    (съ)ем    (в*ы*)пью    мы    (съ)ед*и*м пьём/в*ы*пьем
ты    (съ)ешь пьёшь/в*ы*пьешь    вы    (съ)ед*и*те    пь*ё*те/в*ы*пьете
он, он*а*, он*о*    (съ)ест    пьёт/в*ы*пьет    они    (съ)ед*я*т    (в*ы*)пьют

Imperative                    
(ты)    (съ)ешь!    (в*ы*)пей!            
(вы)    (съ)*е*шьте!    (в*ы*)п*е*йте!            

Past tense                    
singular masculine (я (m.), ты (m.), он)    (съ)ел    (в*ы*)пил            
singular feminine (я (f.), ты (f.), она)    (съ)*е*ла    (в*ы*)пил*а* 
plural (мы, вы, они)    (съ)*е*ли    (в*ы*)п*и*ли            

The list here is far from complete and I have just corrected a couple of errors:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Russian_verbs


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## papillon

Thanks for the link, Anatoli.

My favorite verbs from that list have got to be:
*баять* and *мульчировать!

*


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## Anatoli

I don't know who added those funny verbs, if I have a chance I delete them, there are also swearwords in that list. That's Wikipedia and Wictionary, people can add stuff easily but they often don't take responsibility for what they write there 

The site, though is a good place where you can add, say a verb and its conjugation and make available for everyone.


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## papillon

Don't we all love the Wiki! I do agree though, it's a great resourse. These two verbs should probably be deleted. However, what about the (one!) "inappropriate" *б-*word in it? I agree, it was probably a prank, but I thought they did a very good job with it. Synonyms, derivatives, the whole lot. It's almost a pity to remove that! After all из песни слов не выкинешь.

*DR, Sorry if this is way off topic!*


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## Lemminkäinen

Привет всем 

Since it seems there never really came an answer in this thread, I thought I'd just try to give a short explanation on the imperative:

If the present form's stem ends in _one_ consonant *and* the stress in the present form (note: form, not tense; for perfective verbs, this means the future tense) is on the stem, the imperative ending is -ь or ьте:

E.g. *готовить* 

In the 3rd pers. pl. it is гот*о*вят, so we have the stem гот*о*в, ending in one consonant. Now, what about the stress?

Well, since the stress in the 1st pers. s. is on the stem, гот*о*влю, a -ь is added to the stem: *готовь(те)*.

In all other cases, you form imperatives by adding –и or –ите.


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## Eragahn123

Er, I'm quite sure you should say *Kurite, *not *Kyrite*


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## papillon

Eragahn123 said:


> Er, I'm quite sure you should say *Kurite, *not *Kyrite*



Ah, but we are specifically discussing the *imperative* form (повелительное наклонение), an invitation to smoke:

Курите, не стесняйтесь!


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## bwex562

the best rule i know is that you have to look at the FIRST PERSON OF THE PRESENT (IMPERFECTIVE VERBS) or FUTURE (PERFECTIVE):
- IT IS STRESSED AND THERE'S A CONSONANT BEFORE- I - kuriu, kuri
- IT IS NOT STRESSED AND THERE IS A CONSONANT BEFORE - ' - rezhu, rezh'
- IT IS NOT STRESSED AND THERE IS A VOWEL BEFORE - J - pokupaiu, pokupaj
Then you dont' have to considere the lack of stress if there is the prefix vy (vyuchy - vyuchi, even if there is not stree) and the same thing in case of complex consonantic groups (pomniu - pomni).
In making the imperative form, you have to consider then the first person, and the relative alternance, just in case it is conserved in the whole conjugation (rezh' because it is rezhu, rezhesh, but gotov' because it si gotovliu, gotovish...)
Is it clear now?


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