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Belarusian grammar
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The norms of the modern Belarusian grammar were adopted in 1959. Belarusian Grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic. Belarusian orthography is constructed on the phonetic principle ("you write down what you hear") and is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of the Myensk-Vil'nya region, such as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, Belarusian grammar was formalised by notable Belarusian linguist Branislaw Tarashkyevich and first printed in Vil'nya (1918).
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Encyclopedia
The norms of the modern Belarusian grammar were adopted in 1959. Belarusian Grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic. Belarusian orthography is constructed on the phonetic principle ("you write down what you hear") and is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of the Myensk-Vil'nya region, such as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, Belarusian grammar was formalised by notable Belarusian linguist Branislaw Tarashkyevich and first printed in Vil'nya (1918). Historically, there had existed several other alternative Belarusian grammars.
See also: Belarusian alphabet, Belarusian phonology, History of the Belarusian language.
Features
Grammatical system
The main means of representation of the grammatical meanings in the Belarusian language are:
- affixes "???? - ?????", "?????? - ??????";
- suppletivism "? ????", "??????? - ?????", "????? - ?????";
- intonation "?? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ???????";
- function words "????? ??", "?????? ??????";
- roots combining "????????? = ???????+??? - ??? ???????";
- reduplication "????-????";
- order of words "??????? ????? - ????? ???????".
Methods of analytical constructing are also present. E.g., word "?????", which is Instrumental of "???" forest, may grammatically mean:
- circumstance, if used with verbs of motion "????? ?????";
- specification, if together with other verbs "???????? ?????".
Nouns
There are six cases in Belarusian:
Historically, there also existed a vocative case (BGN/PCGN: klichny), but in modern Belarusian, like Slovene, Slovak and closely-related Russian, it's used only sparingly, generally in literature, and usually is not mentioned in textbooks.
For nouns (BGN/PCGN: nazowniki) there are several types of declension:
- i-stem feminine (feminine nouns ending in a hard consonant, soft consonant or ?: ??? "stove", ????? "bone", ???? "blood")
- a-stem mostly feminine (subdivided into four subgroups: hard stems, guttural stems, soft stems, hardened stems)
- o-stem masculine (subdivided into hard stem and soft stem) and neuter (????? "oar", ???? "sea")
- consonantal stem mostly neuter (???? "lamb", ?????? "burden", ???? "seed")
- irregular nouns (for example, ???? "eye" and ???? "ear")
Pronouns
There are eight types of pronouns (BGN/PCGN: zaymyenniki) in Belarusian:
- Possessive (???????????): ??? (my, mine); ???? (your(s)familiar); ???, ????? (his); ??, ???? (her); ??? (our(s)); ??? (your(s)); ??, ???? (their(s)), ???? ((one's) own).
- Personal (????????): ? (I), ?? (you (singular, familiar)), ?? (he), ??? (she), ??? (it), ?? (we), ?? (you), ??? (they);
- Negative (????????): ????? (nobody), ????? (nothing), ????? (nobody's), ????? (not of any kind), ????????, ??????? (no one);
- Definitive (???????????): ??? (-self); ???? (the very, - self); ????? (all, whole); ??? (all, everything); ??? (all, every, everybody); ?????, ??????? (every, any); ????? (each); ???? (other).
- Indefinite (????????): ?????, ??????? (someone, somebody); ?????, ??????? (something); ????, ??????? (someone's, somebody's, a); ???????? (some of); ???????? (a few, some, several); ?????, ??????? (some, a kind of, something like); ???-???????, ???-?????? (anybody); ???-???????, ???-?????? (anything); ???-??????? (anybody's); ???-??? (smth.dickey); ???-??? (a, somebody's (negative)); ???-??? (dickey).
- Interrogative-comparative (?????????): ??? (who), ??? (what), ??? (which), ?????? (which), ??? (whose), ?????? (how much);
- Demonstrative (??????????): ??? (that); ???? (this); ???? (those); ???? (such); ?????? (such, of this kind); ???????, ???????? (that much);
- Reflexive (????????): ???? (-self).
Note: proper names and places names are rendered in BGN/PCGN
Sources
- ?????????? ?????????. ? 2-? ?. / ?? ????, ??-? ???????????? ??? ?. ??????; [???. ?. ?. ??????, ?. ?. ????]. ??. : ?????? ? ???????, 1985.
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