Talk:Ukrainian grammar

Inconsistency

Sonant Common Slavic ḷ and ḹ became ov, while word final *lǔ became v. For example, Common Slavic *vḹkǔ becomes vovk in Ukrainian BUT in the Proto-Slavic language article it states: existence of syllabic sonorants in Proto-Slavic is not generally accepted, they may have developed only in individual Slavic dialects (as many believe, no syllabic sonorants were in East Slavic dialects); many scholars postulate the group ъl, ьl, ъr, ьr instead of the syllabic sonorants l̥, ĺ̥, r̥, ŕ̥. -Iopq 12:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Consensus seems to be that there were no sonants. Hence, I have changed the section. Woollymammoth 21:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Transcription and Cyrillic

These statements are totally confusing:

1. Hard Vowels (a, y (from Common Slavic *y), o, and u / а, и (from Common Slavic *ы), о, and у)
2. Soft Vowels (e, i and y (from Common Slavic *i) / е, і and и (from Common Slavic *и)

It took me quite a while and a lot of thinking before I realized that the same information was being expressed twice, once in Roman letters and once in Cyrillic. The letter-shape y represents different sounds in each alphabet, and Roman-letter "u" in italics u looks practically identical to Cyrillic "и" in italics и. If I had read ahead to the consonant section I would have gotten it quicker, but that shouldn't be necessary. You need to make it clear which are Roman letters and which are Cyrillic, and that the information is indicated twice.

Sorry for the confusion. Hope this is better (It is not ideal). Woollymammoth 23:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Nominative?

The article says: 'Another interesting aspect of Ukrainian (and most other Slavic languages) is that in a "negation", nouns that would normally be placed in the nominative case are placed in the genitive case.' Are you sure that the nominative and not the accusative case is meant here? In Polish an object which would be in the accusative case in a positive sentence appears in the genitive in a negative one. Widziałem dziewczynę - I saw a/the girl-ACC Nie widziałem dziewczyny - I didn't see a/the girl-GEN

Pittmirg 07:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Quite True. Corrected. Woollymammoth 15:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Palatalization

The Current phonological changes section erroneously states (in § 1.1 and § 2.1) that г and ґ mutate into ж or з. In reality, ґ mutates into дж or дз (see Літера, за якою тужать in Б. Антоненко-Давидович Як ми говоримо, Київ, «Либідь», 1991, p. 213). Sclerolith (talk) 06:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder how ґ can mutate to either ж or дж if in the article Ukrainian language it states that "the letter ґ appears almost exclusively in loan words". Are there any examples of either ґ↔ж or ґ↔дж?--Jeziorko (talk) 22:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no mutation for ґ. This letter is very special and rare. -- chyapay 03/09/2013

Cyrillic Sounds?

I've heard of Cyrillic letters, but what is a Cyrillic sound? The Classification of consonants section classifies the Ukrainian р sound as Cyrillic! Isn't it an alveolar trill?

Also, the opening statement of the section that "a fourfold categorisation of consonants can be made" is confusing. Wouldn't it be easier to say, "consonants can be divided into four categories"? What is a 'fourfold categorization'? At first, it made me think that it meant "consonants can be categorized by four criteria, or in four different ways." Sclerolith (talk) 06:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Даси, їси, росповіси

Даш, їж, розповіш are also acceptable. The latter sounds awkward. I'd rather say розкажеш, but that is a different verb. HolIgor (talk) 16:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Whether the forms you cite are also acceptable is debatable. According to the 1993 Orthography of the Ukrainian Language, the only acceptable forms for the 2nd person singular indicative are those that have been included in the table (Даси, їси, росповіси). Of the forms that you have mentioned, the same book mentions that їж is the the 2nd person imperative form. I would hazard to guess that the forms, даш and розповіш, were created by analogy based on the "regular" verbs. These 3 verbs are descended from the athematic verbs of Indo-European and in many languages are highly irregular. To this list can be added the slightly archaic form of the form to be in the 2nd person singular indicative єси, which can occasionally be found in religious use.Woollymammoth (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The forms даш, їш, розповіш are either analogue formation (like mentioned) or perhaps Polish influence: dasz, jesz, rozpowiesz. It is possible that these forms float about in certain Ukrainian speeches, in the diaspora or in the native regions.--Jeziorko (talk) 22:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Бувший

The proper translation of "former" is "колишній". Бувший is used but considered to be surzhyk. HolIgor (talk) 16:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It (бувший) is also commonly used amongst the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada that arrived after WWII. Changed the translation to dialectical. Woollymammoth (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Несучий

Very awkward.

несучи(й) (nesučy(j)): (ger) carrying; (adj) that which is being carried

The second part is totally wrong. Is should be переносимий.

As for the first part, ukrainains usually do not speak or think so. They use usually a construction with носій. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HolIgor (talk • contribs) 16:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This form is derived from the verb нести, which in English can be translated as to carry. Thus, one translation of the present active gerund, несучи, would be carrying, or as the present active adjective, that which is being carried. I would caution that these translation are direct based on the base meaning of the word, that is, in a given sentence, the correct English translation of the word need not be those given above. Woollymammoth (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

HolIgor - wrong. There are both words несучий and носій, and also несучи. Here let me explain (I put apostrophe like a stress mark):

- нес’учий (adjectival participle) the one that is carrying ()
- несуч’и (adverbial participle) while/at the time of carrying
- нос’ій (noun)
carrier (or, more precisely - medium, media - the word is 90% used in IT, no other use is valid in the modern language)

Also NOTE: it is BAD PRACTICE in Ukrainian to use ACTIVE adjectival participles. Personally I got "B" instead of "A" on Ukrainian at middle school for using those. In practice, there are a few Ukrainian active adjectival participles that are widely used, the other ones are considered as Russian speech (русизм) hence incorrect. A short list of the acceptable APs: несучий, ведучий, сидячий, пишучий, ріжучий, летючий, смердючий. The main idea: acceptable AP-s are rather close to adjectives in their function, rather than to verbs. Also mind that passive-voice AP-s are OBVIOUS RUSSIAN-STYLE MISTAKE! Example: світящийся (should be - той, що світиться). Remember, that Ukrainians tend to say a verb phrase, rather than use an AP. Unlike Russians.

Also, the translation "(adj) that which is being carried" is MALICIOUSLY INCORRECT, as it states for a passive AP, and несучий is obviously active. The "переносимий" word that I see one of young Ukrainiologists (lol) dropped was completely out of place as well. Let me explain: as I mentioned before, there are no passive adjectival participles (APs) in Ukrainian! "переносимий" is an invalid cliche taken from Russian "переносимый", and in Russian it indeed can mean "that which is being carried". Ukrainian option is "(той,) який/якого (пере-)носять" or if it were in the past, you could say "ношений"/"несений". Chyapay (talk) 07:32, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Tense and aspect

This paragraph sounds completely wrong. As far as I know verbs (at least most of them) cannot take both perfective and imperfective form. There are two classes of verbs: perfective and imperfective. The verb спати is a perfective verb while verbs поспати, переспати, недоспати are all imperfective. While they are derived from спати, they are different verb with defferent meanings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HolIgor (talk • contribs) 16:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

No way is спати perfective. It is "to sleep" - describing a process of sleeping, with undetermined end, ex: сплю, спиш, спить, спимо, спите, сплять. Logically sleeping isn't accomplishing anything, it's just a process, so there would be no direct perfective verb for it. However there are perfective verbs related to it, the closest will be поспати (to have a sleep, to have slept). BTW Ukrainian is my first language. -- chyapay 03/09/2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chyapay (talk • contribs) 06:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I have improved the section. If I remember correctly, there are verbs in Ukrainian whose aspect differ only by the placement of the stress. If I can find the source for this, I will list some examples. Woollymammoth (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Писати is imperfective. Надписати is perfective as well as переписати, дописати, приписати, розписати, підписати, записати, списати, вписати etc. Надписувати, підписувати, приписувати, дописувати, розписувати, записувати etc are imperfective again. All these verbs are related but they are different verbs, not the forms of a single verb. HolIgor (talk) 20:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

скликати (imperf.) – скликати (perf.)
Niniowskyi, W. Ukrainian-English and English-Ukrainian Dictionary. Edmonton: Ukrainian Book Store, 1994.
--Jeziorko (talk) 02:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

The basic idea throughout the pan-Slavic perfective–imperfective division is how the eventuality (i.e., the action or state denoted by the verb meaning) is viewed: perfective verbs topicalize the entire eventuality as one whole (including the beginning and end points of it), or they focus in on a certain change in the eventuality; imperfective verbs, however, view the process of the eventuality without comments as to the beginning or end of it.
Perfective: "Eventuality occurs within the Topic Time"
Imperfective: "Eventuality occurs throughout and extends beyond the Topic Time"
[p. 17]
Richardson, Kylie R. Case and Aspect in Slavic. Oxford University Press, 2007.
The book gives very detailed descriptions of differences between the Slavic languages as well.
I think the article should be expanded this way perhaps.--Jeziorko (talk) 02:40, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Congrats!

Wow, excellent article! Now you can actually study not leaving the wikipedia (just kidding). Gotta say that it is well written and I just wanted to express my many thanks to who did that. This one is a great deal of work. Good job! Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 02:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Kyiv

Since Ukraine gained its independence on August the 24th 1991, it is officially agreed to use Ukrainian names for cities and villages within the territory of Ukraine instead of Russian ones. So please use proper Ukrainian-English transliteration for spelling the word "Kyiv" (the capital of Ukraine). There is no "Kiev", since Ukraine broke off from the Soviet. Moreover, it is humiliation in the face of Ukrainian nation to call their cities by names the former occupants used. So please refer to the official registries of Ukraine to see the English transliteration for city/town/village/street/historical person's name, or at least browse through official Ukrainian lists, see the names in Ukrainian and then transliterate them using a standard approach.

Hereby I list some common Cities:

- Kyiv
- Kharkiv
- Dnipropetrovs'k
- Odesa
- Donets'k
- Zaporizhzhya
- L'viv
- Ternopil'
- Ivano-Frankivs'k
- Zhytomyr
- Vinnytsya
- Cherkasy
- Luhans'k
- Sumy
- Poltava
- Chernihiv
- Herson
- Chernivtsi
- Uzhhorod
- Rivne
- Luts'k
- Khmel'nyts'kyi
- Kirovohrad
- Mykolayiv
- Simferopol'
- Sevastopol'
--Chyapay (talk) 07:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Following this logic, Russians should demand using "Moskva" instead of "Moskau" in German, because Germans are no longer a force to be reckoned with in Russia & Germany lost a big war with USSR (which was effectively Russia and Russian colonies). Seriously, sir, you won't win anyone's respect by being insecure. Most places in Ukraine were first heard of in the Anglo-Saxon world when Ukraine was part of either Poland, Russia, or both, so it's natural that the local pronunciation didn't make it into English. Besides, some of these have classical or neoclassical names (Leopolis – could be adapted into English as "Leople", cf. "Constantinople"; Kiiovia; Sympheropolis, Sebastopolis). 89.64.80.243 (talk) 13:48, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Reflexive Pronouns?

I noticed this article doesn't cover (or even mention) reflexive pronouns and their conjugations.

Is this something that can be added by someone who knows what they're doing? (meaning not me). Thanks.

142.244.5.179 (talk) 06:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)Geno

Some mistakes:

In "Classification of verbs" section words (умре) and (почне) are not in present, but in future. The same with (двигне). Should be (умирає, починає, двигає). Or maybe I don't understand the subject because English is not my native.

In "Prefixes" section I'm gonna chnge some words in a table + correct some mistakes, like (нe) is always written separately with verbs, even more - this is not a prefix, this is a negative fraction that can take a role of prefix. Also there is mistake in word (обв'язковий) - should be (обов'язковий), where prefix is обо-. Also before table there is "logical" mistake... There are no verbal roots in Ukrainian. Both noun (хід) and verb (ходити) have the same root - (хід), but because of alternating root vowel it may become (ход). But root is the same. Also above that in splitted word I changed (на+пів+від+кри [root]+тий) to (на+пів+від+кр+ит+ий) because of wrong root (there are no [кри] in word "покрівля") and "ий" is not a suffix, but an ending. Among that I want to say that article is very good. Definitely better even than Ukrainian one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.44.30.18 (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Possible inconsistency

So, something a bit confusing: "They can't be followed by a soft sign (in Cyrillic: ь; transliterated as apostrophe (’)) or any iotified vowel. All but the digraph щ can be doubled, in which case they can be followed by a soft vowel, e.g., zbižžja/збіжжя."

As far as I understand, я is actually a iotified vowel, so the first statement of those two is incorrect, isn't it?

— 96.249.241.185 (talk) 01:36, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Declension of neuter adjectives in accusative

In the article it says in a footnote in section Adjectives -> Declension:

Note about the declensions:

(1) In the accusative case (except the feminine singular), a difference is made between animate (genitive) and inanimate (nominative) adjectives.

This statement excludes only the feminine singular case. Therefore the statement includes the neuter singular case, so that there should be a difference between the animate and inanimate cases. But all of the three tables that reference the footnote show only a single ending ("-е"), and no "a/b" alternatives such as those shown for masculine singular (for example "-ий / -ого") and plural cases (for example "-і / -их").

Either the table entries are incomplete, or the footnote is inaccurate. Which is it? RainerBlome (talk) 21:52, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

You are quite correct that there is a discrepancy between the footnote and the table. I have now corrected it. The footnote should read “…(except the feminine singular and the neuter singular)…”. Thank you for pointing this out. Woollymammoth (talk) 06:30, 15 November 2024 (UTC)