Re: deepfriedmars.com

From: Miguel Cruz (mnc_at_admin.u.nu)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 23:45:19 -0600

Xenia <tyusha@freemail.ru> wrote:
> There's some basic information for you. Russian has six (not to
> mention Vocative, Genitive II and Prepositional II) cases, English has
> only two. Russian has three genders, English has one. Verbs conjugate
> according to person, number, tense, voice and mood. Verbs have two
> aspects: Imperfective and Perfective. Participles exist in 4 forms:
> Present Active, Past Active, Present Passive and Past Passive. There
> are short participles corresponding to two Passive forms of regular
> participles that like short adjectives do not decline. There are
> adverbial participles that do not decline and exist in Present and
> Past forms. Word order is free, moreover, by changing the word order
> any word in a sentence can be emphasized. Russian shares most of these
> characteristics with other Slavic languages.
>
> If you think that Slavic languages are "not particularly grammatically
> advanced", try to learn at least one of them before making any
> sweeping statements concerning its grammar.

I don't see how having three genders is an indication of advanced
grammatical development; rather, quite the opposite: a burdensome vestige
that slows down learning and complicates use.

A grammar is not advanced merely because it sports byzantine complexity. It
is advanced because it has shed pointless artifice and now only requires
features that provide a positive trade-off against the costs of their use.

miguel 

-- 
Hit The Road! Photos from 32 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu

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