Stress on the verbs like сердить and пустить

Question

Regular verbs that end in и́ть in the infinitive (the stress is on the final syllable) and in ишь in the second person singular, may have a fixed stress (like говори́ть - ты говори́шь) or a non-fixed stress (like люби́ть - ты лю́бишь). If they have Slavonic palatalization (for instance, утверди́ть has Slavonic palatalization because it has the form утверждённый and not утвержённый), we know that they have fixed stress. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any general rule.

Nevertheless, in a grammar for non-Russian native speakers, I found the following rule (if I understood it correctly): For regular verbs that end in и́ть in the infinitive (with stress on the final syllable) and in ишь in the second person singular, if the radical ends in two consonants, then the stress is fixed. As an example of the application of this rule, we have: ты возвести́шь and not ты возве́стишь. Three exceptions are given (and it's formulated in a way that suggests that the list is exhaustive): дразни́ть, корми́ть and пусти́ть (and verbs derived from them).

But applying this rule, we should have: ты серди́шь, yet we have ты се́рдишь. So, I'm wondering if the author just forgot some exceptions or if I misunderstood the rule... Do you know of any other examples like дразни́ть, корми́ть, пусти́ть (and серди́ть?) with non-fixed stress that end in two consonants?

Answer 1

In addition to your examples, I found these:

• винти́ть – ви́нтишь (и винти́шь)
• черти́ть – че́ртишь
• крести́ть – кре́стишь
• скобли́ть – ско́блишь (и скобли́шь)

I used the following query:

https://gramdict.ru/search/*ить?stress=c

In the past few hundred years many verbs have changed their stress in the 2nd and 3rd persons from the ending to the root, and it's still an ongoing process. More on this here: https://github.com/gramdict/zalizniak-2010/issues/47

Answer 2

Sergey's post answers your question well.

I'll post this because it's too long for a comment thread to Sergey's answer, and because it does elaborate on some parts of your question and the follow-up in the comments:

1. There are several verbs with variability in stress both in the infinitive and in the finite forms: оки́слить/окисли́ть, ско́блить/скобли́ть, те́плить/тепли́ть.

   Ско́блить (the infinitive) has completely fallen out of use in the modern language, and the finite forms with the stress on the penultimate syllable (ско́блит, ско́блишь etc.) are used almost exclusively in poetry.

   Те́плить "to burn (something) dimly" and тепли́ть ("to make warm, to insulate") mean different things. So do оки́слить "to oxidize" and окисли́ть "to make sour".

2. Russian stress is extremely mobile indeed. For some verbs like сверлить, долбить etc. most dictionaries only list сверли́шь, долби́шь as valid stress patterns, but many (if not most) speakers use све́рлишь, до́лбишь in speech.

   Some exceptions mentioned by Sergey (че́ртишь, ви́нтишь, кре́стишь) were not considered valid for literary use until the XX century. The popular song Кру́тится, ве́ртится шар голубой (better known in the West by its Yiddish cover, Vu iz dus gesele) has been criticized for its use of the vernacular stress pattern. Крутить and вертеть are not related to your question, but it's a good demonstration of the overall principle.

3. The derivatives of the verbs with the prefix вы- put the stress on the prefix: вы́пустишь, вы́кормишь, вы́чертишь etc.