13

Are there any pronunciation rules for the letter "о"? I wonder why that letter is slightly differently spoken in feminine and masculine version of the sentence "I understand"

m: я понял

f: я поняла

In a video tutorial (German, 2nd video) they pronounce the male version as "ja ponil" and the female version "ja panila". What is the reason for the subtle distinction in pronunciation?

| improve this question | |
  • I would rather say "ja ponel". "ponil" sounds unnatural. – Anixx Sep 20 '12 at 21:44
  • My advice to you is just to pronounce all unstressed vowels as shwa. This way you will never be wrong. – Anixx Sep 5 '13 at 9:47
  • I would have expected this to be a comment, not an answer – Aleks G Sep 5 '13 at 10:37
  • This is simply wrong. Just do an experiment on 10 random words and you'll see – Armen Tsirunyan Sep 5 '13 at 11:45
16

Many vowels in Russian, including o, are pronounced differently depending on whether they occur on the stressed position, before the stressed position, or after. In case of o it's like this:

  • stressed: o

  • before stressed: a

  • after stressed: ə (shwa)

Еxample:

  • хорошо (stressed on the last syllable, therefore pronounced as харашо)

  • облако (stressed on the first syllable, therefore pronounced as облəкə)

  • поточечно (stressed on the second syllable, therefore pronounced as паточəчнə.Тhe word has three o's and all are pronounced differently because the first o is before the stressed vowel, the second is stressed, and the third is after the stressed vowel. Note that this is a slightly contrived word meaning point-by-point, I just couldn't come up with a simpler example with three o's with the stress on the middle o).

The masculine понял is stressed on the first syllable, so o is pronounced as o. The feminine поняла is stressed on the last syllable, so o is pronounced as a. In some dialects and by some uneducated people, поняла is stressed on the first syllable, in which case it is pronounced as понял with a schwa in the end.

The shift of stress between different forms of the same word is more than common in Russian.

| improve this answer | |
  • Sounds easy. I think regarding stressing this question does already cover that topic, but are there any rules regarding stressing in dependency to masculine and feminine versions? That is, can I expect that most masculine words are differently stressed as the feminine? Or is this one just an exception? And how about polite form of address, e.g. Извините/Извини (that's a bad example, but they're the only words I know). Can I expect stress changes, too? (I am not sure, if that is an separate question worth...) – Em1 Jun 17 '12 at 12:19
  • @Em1: I wouldn't go as far as to say that most masculine verbs are differently stressed than the feminine, but many really do, especially in the past tense, as in this example. Other example: он пролИл, она пролилА, but: он починИл, она починИла. I don't know of a pattern and can't make one up, so I suppose you have to remember it along with the word you're learning. As to polite form of address (plural), I can't think of an example when the stress changes. – Armen Tsirunyan Jun 17 '12 at 12:23
  • should it be spelled "поняла" rather than "понала"? – Trident D'Gao Jun 17 '12 at 18:54
  • 1
    I don't think your example поточенно is a contrived word (иногда полезно знать, что функция сходится поточечно :)), but some words of broader interest with the three-o stress pattern you want are короткое, которое, полуостров, and попробовать. (Also there's полуплоскость, but that might fall into the contrived category for some reason). – KCd Jun 26 '12 at 0:56
  • 2
    "что функция сходится поточечно" You meant последовательность функций сходится поточечно, of course :-) – fedja Sep 5 '13 at 11:17
1

Rule says for both o and a after a non-palatalised consonant first unstressed syllable, absolute beginning and absolute end have [^] - sound similar to а but with a middle up-going like in о, whereas all the other unstressed ones have shwa: [^билиск] (for обелиск), [хəр^шо] (for хорошо) with stress on last syllable, [облəк^] (for облако) with stress in the very beginning (last a because of absolute end).

| improve this answer | |

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.