The article is devoted to the description of the main derivational models of feminitives in contemporary Russian using corpus data. Today, native speakers often deviate from the rules of word formation of feminitives de-scribed in textbooks on Russian grammar or use several derivational models for the same source word. Our research is based on a sample of feminitives that can be found in various VKontakte communities dedicated to feminism. We compare statistics from the Russian National Corpus and Araneum Russicum III Maximum. Also, we use the Google Ngram Viewer corpus to track the tendency in word formation of feminitives. The results allow us to characterize the current state of derivational models of Russian feminitives, as well as to make adjustments to the existing rules.
Nowadays many studies on the word formation of feminitives are carried out without the use of corpus
statistics. For instance, the study [
In [
The paper [
At the same time, some scholars try to base their research on Russian corpora. Particularly, in [
Nonetheless, we consider that the combination of several corpora for the Russian language helps to represent the most complete picture of the word-formation process of feminitives.
In the Russian grammar reference by N.Yu. Shvedova [
1. -k (-k) suffix is usually added to masculine nouns without any suffixes, to noun with -ets (-ец) or -ist (-ист) suffixes, or to nouns with -man (-ман). 2. -its (-иц) suffix can also be added to masculine nouns without any suffixes or with -ets (-ец) suffix, but it has the meaning “a wife of an X”, where X is a masculine noun. 3. -nits (-ниц) suffix is added to nouns with -tel’ (-тель). 4. -ikh (-их) suffix is used for nouns without any suffixes or with -nick (-ник) and -nichy (ничий). According to N.Yu. Shvedova, it also has the meaning “a wife of an X”, where X is a masculine noun. 5. -sh (-ш) suffix is used for nouns with -r, -l, -n, and -nt (-р, -л, -н и -нт) at the end of stems. 6. If a masculine noun has -ich/-ovich/-evich (-ич/-ович/-евич) suffix, -n (-н) suffix is used to form a feminine noun. 7. -in (-ин) suffix is used for masculine nouns without any suffixes or with -log (-лог) at the end of stems. 8. -j (the Russian letter after soft consonant) is used if a corresponding masculine noun has -un (ун) suffix. 9. -ess (-есс) suffix is added to masculine nouns without any suffixes. It sometimes has the meaning “a wife of an X”, where X is a masculine noun. 10. -is (-ис) is added to the masculine nouns with -or (-ор) and -tor (-тор) morphemes.
11. -ukh (-ух) is used for derivating female animals.
N.Yu. Shvedova also states that sometimes a masculine base is absent due to the absence of the corresponding male person in real life (rodil’nitsa (родильница) has always been a woman, so we can’t form a masculine noun). Also, male-female pairs can denote different professions (tekhnichka (техничка) is a woman who cleans rooms, and tekhnik (техник) is a builder).
It is also mentioned that if there is no necessity in highlighting a sexual identity, one can use neutral words that have originally been masculine (for instance, secretar’ Ivanova – секретарь Иванова). At the same time, due to the active promotion of feminitives in the Russian language, this rule loses its topicality.
For this study, we selected over 170 commonly used feminitives from various VKontakte communities dedicated to feminism and its promotion. The final list includes feminitives that use both one derivational model and several ones. In the beginning of the experiments, we developed criteria for choosing communities and feminitives: 1. The total number of members of a community should be more than 10000 as the community can be considered as a trustworthy one. The following communities were taken into account: Feminizm: naglyadno (Феминизм: наглядно)2, Podslushano Feminism (Подслушано Феминизм)3, etc. 2. The feminitives were chosen manually from posts approved and posted by official representatives, for now we leave feminitives from comments out of account.
Then there was a necessity to choose corpora for further procedures. We used the Russian National Corpus4 and Araneum Russicum III Maximum5 in order to get ipm frequencies from each of them. If there are more than one feminine noun for the analyzed word, we also involved the comparative diagrams that can be easily obtained using the Google Ngram Viewer corpus.
Below we present the main results of the study. Diagrams 1 and 2 show ipm frequencies of the feminitives that were in both corpora. There are totally 151 words in the first diagram, that is approximately 84% of the analyzed words. As for the second one, there are less feminitives – only 98 words (55% of the analyzed words).
Diagram 1: The most frequent feminitives in the Araneum Russicum III Maximum 2 https://vk.com/feminism_visually 3 https://vk.com/overhear_feminism 4 https://ruscorpora.ru/new/ 5 http://unesco.uniba.sk/aranea/run.cgi/corp_info?corpname=AranRusi_a Diagram 2: The most frequent feminitives in the Russian National Corpus
It is obvious that the left part of the diagrams denotes the most stable feminitives that has been existing in the Russian language for a long time: actrisa, predstavitel’nitsa, rabotnitsa (актриса, представительница, работница), etc. At the same time, there are some disputable lexemes. For instance, in the second diagram there is the personazha (персонажа) word that has two sets of different grammatical features: it can be a feminine noun that was formed by adding an ending to the corresponding masculine word; it can be a genitive case or an accusative one of the singular of the personazh (персонаж) word.
While analyzing examples from the Russian National Corpus, it becomes clear that all the examples have the second set of features. There are no examples with the first set of grammatical features.
Budem schitat', chto struktura personazha vklyuchaet v sebya imya, spisok togo, chto on imeet, i spisok togo, chto on khochet imet' (tsel') (Будем считать, что структура персонажа включает в себя имя, список того, что он имеет, и список того, что он хочет иметь (цель)) → the genitive case.
Analoga etomu imeni net ni u odnogo zapadnogo yolochnogo personazha (Аналога этому имени нет ни у одного западного ёлочного персонажа) → the genitive case.
Ya zhe predlagayu vspomnit' otmennogo personazha i vpolne sebe interesnuyu trilogiyu o zhyostkom okhotnike na vampirov (Я же предлагаю вспомнить отменного персонажа и вполне себе интересную трилогию о жестком охотнике на вампиров.) → the accusative case.
There is also the adminka (админка) word that has at least two meanings: it can be either a feminitive denoting a profession or a special right to access all the functions of a certain website. In the Russian National Corpus, there are only 2 occurrences with the following examples:
Plyus, sootvetstvenno, obshchaya adminka, veb-formy, v kotorykh HR razmeshchayut vakansii (Плюс, соответственно, общая админка, веб-формы, в которых HR размещают вакансии).
I vo-vtoryh, Gennady igral davno, igral khorosho, mnogokratno uchastvoval v sorevnovaniyakh, gde ego mogli videt' v reale, imel blestyashchuyu reputaciyu i pol'zovalsya sredi igrokov bol'shim uvazheniem, za chto emu i predostavlena byla «adminka» – special'naya komp'yuternaya programma, pozvolyayushchaya regulirovat' khod igry... (И вовторых, Геннадий играл давно, играл хорошо, многократно участвовал в соревнованиях, где его могли видеть в реале, имел блестящую репутацию и пользовался среди игроков большим уважением, за что ему и предоставлена была «админка» – специальная компьютерная программа, позволяющая регулировать ход игры...).
As you can see, in both sentences this word is used in the second sense.
Those feminitives, whose ipm frequencies are lower than 1, are of great interest. They represent the feminitives that are not widely used and may not be mentioned in contemporary dictionaries.
Diagram 3: Main trends in the word-formation models of feminitives whose ipm frequencies in the Russian National Corpus is lower than 1
Almost half of the feminitives were formed according to the model, in which the suffix -k (-к) was added to the existing male name of the profession: guitarist – gitaristka (гитарист – гитаристка), spetsialist – spetsialistka (специалист - специалистка), yurist – yuristka (юрист – юристка), etc. These words do not deviate from the traditional rule proposed by N.Yu. Shvedova. There are no deviations in the formation of feminitives using the suffix -nits (-ниц): deyatel’ – deyatel’nitsa (деятель – деятельница), voitel’ – voitel’nitsa (воитель – воительница), etc. The Others category denotes those word-formation models that were not mentioned in the grammar of N.Yu. Shvedova. There is only one example in this group – biznesvumen (бизнесвумен). In this case, the derived English-language -men (мен) morpheme was replaced by the -vumen (-вумен) morpheme.
Diagram 4: Main trends in the word-formation models of feminitives whose ipm frequencies in the Araneum Russicum Maximum Corpus is lower than 1
As for the second corpus, we can track the same tendency. The word-formation model with the -k (-к) suffix is the most productive, while the models with -ikh (-их), -ess (-есс), -its (-иц), -j (-ь) suffixes are not so widely used. The Others group includes two words – biznesledi (бизнеследи) and bizneswumen (визнесвумен). Among all the feminitives of this sample there are some to pay special attention to. First of all, let’s consider the bojchikha (бойчиха) word. A native speaker prefers adding the -ikh (-их) suffix to the masculine stem rather than using the derivated English gyorl (гёрл) word. Another word is bloginya (блогиня). According to the reference of N.Yu. Shvedova, one can add the -in (-ин) suffix to the words with the -log (-лог) at the end. Actually, that is true for the words in which -log (-лог) denotes sciences or scientists: filolog, astrolog, teolog, (филолог, астролог, теолог), etc. Moreover, the suffix wasn’t added to a profession of the masculine gender, it was added to the word of the masculine gender that denotes the set of posts on social networks. That’s why we can consider this word to be a deviation from the traditional rules.
Among the analyzed feminitives one can notice that there can be some options of feminine nouns that were formed from the same stem but with the help of different suffixes (Table 1).
Word avtoritsa (авторица) avtoressa (авторесса) liderka (лидерка) lidersha (лидерша) yuristka (юристка) yuristsha (юристша) vrachinya (врачиня) vracheya (врачея) vrachitsa (врачица)
politikessa (политикесса) politessa (политесса) aktyorka (актерка) aktrisa (актриса) tantsorka (танцорка) tantsovshchitsa (танцовщица) fotografinya (фотографиня)
fotografistka (фотографистка)
pensionerka (пенсионерка)
pensiorinya (пенсиориня) pensioneressa (пенсионересса)
biznesledi (бизнеследи) biznesmensha (бизнесменша) bizneswumen (бизнесвумен) pol’zovatel’nitsa (пользовательница)
pol’zovatel’ka (пользователька) (-исс) -its (-иц) -ess (-есс) reportyor (репортёр) 0,003132596 0,00745558 0,004322983 0,003821768
psikhiatr (психиатр)
0 psikhoterapevt (психотерапевт)
Word reportyorsha (репортерша) reportyorka (репортерка) psikhiatressa (психиатресса) psikhiatrinya (психиатриня)
psikhiatrisa (психиатриса)
psikhiatorka (психиаторка) psikhoterapevtka (психотерапевтка) psikhoterapevtessa (психотерапевтесса) psikhoterapevtsha (психотерапевтша) doktorsha (докторша) doktorka (докторка)
doktoritsa (докторица) dizaynerka (дизайнерка) dizaynersha (дизайнерша)
prezidentka (президентка) prezidentsha (президентша)
milliarderka (миллиардерка)
milliardersha (миллиардерша) kommentatorka (комментаторка) kommentatorsha (комментаторша) kapitanka (капитанка) kapitansha (капитанша) 0 0 0,000814475 0,000125304 0,129376234 0,003007293 0,010901436 0,003508508 0,008144751 0,001691602 0,01265569 0,000375912 0,018607623 repetitor (репетитор) direktor (директор) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0,018650218 prepodavatel’ (преподаватель) 0 0,005074806 0,01428464 0,538869245
Word chempionka (чемпионка) chempionsha (чемпионша)
repetitorka (репетиторка) repetitoressa (репетиторесса)
direktorka (директорка) direktorshka (директоршка)
direktrissa (директрисса) prepodavatel’nitsa (преподавательница) prepodka (преподка) prepodsha (преподша) spikerka (спикерка) spikersha (спикерша)
organizatorka (организаторка) organizatorsha (организаторша) muzykantka (музыкантка) muzykantsha (музыкантша)
The first important feature that is worth mentioning is the attempt to create other feminine nouns while there are words that are used by native speakers in their everyday life. These are aktrisa, tantsovshchitsa (актриса, танцовщица) and some others. They having ipm frequencies more than 1, it means that they and their word-formation models are rather stable in the Russian language. Nonetheless, new models can be also used. For example, here is an example from the Russian National Corpus: Moya doch ― aktyorka?! Ub'yu! Idi von v stayku, Zor'ku pochist'… (Моя дочь ― актёрка?! Убью! Иди вон в стайку, Зорьку почисть…).
As for the most often-used morphemes, they are -k (-к) and -sh (-ш). According to the reference of N.Yu. Shvedova, these suffixes are added to the word of the masculine gender that have -r, -l, -n, and -nt (-р, -л, -н и -нт) at the end of stems or that don’t have any suffixes. Of course, we can track some deviations. For example, let’s consider prepodka (преподка) and prepodsha (преподша). The compatibility of the stem ending with -d (-д) and the -sh (-ш) suffix is out of the rule. They are added to the short colloquial form of the prepodavatel’ (преподаватель) word and have stylistically reduced meanings. Mind the following sentences from the Araneum Russicum III Maximum corpus.
A prepodka na kursakh tak ne dumaet (А преподка на курсах так не думает).
Akhakhakhakha, prepodsha teper' menya dazhe ne dostayot na parakh (Ахахахаха, преподша теперь меня даже не достаёт на парах).
Basing on Shvedova's reference book, we can distinguish two different linguistic situations of the use of -k (-к) and -sh (-ш). At the same time, based on Table 1, we can analyze the statistical difference between these suffixes. For example, let’s overview some ipm frequencies from the Araneum Russicum III Maximum corpus. There are 24 pairs of words for which one can use both -k (-к) and -sh (-ш). We can use t-test to check whether our datasets are significantly different from each other or not. = | | = | , , , | = 1,13 , (1)
With a threshold value of = 0,05 and a degree of freedom that is equal to 46, we can find the critical value according to the t-distribution table: = 2,013. As is less than , there are no significant differences in the usage of the suffixes, that’s why we can consider them interchangeable in the contemporary word-formation process of feminitives.
There are also feminine nouns to which native speakers add the -iss (-исс) suffix that is another option of the -ess (-есс) suffix: avtrissa (автрисса) and direktrissa (директрисса). The first word has no occurrences in both corpora, and the examples with the second one can be easily found. — A chto ty, Sanya, na zabore pisal? — sprosila direktrissa (— А что ты, Саня, на заборе писал? — спросила директрисса).
Direktrissa mne ponravilas' ― takaya pozhilaya dama staroy zakalki (Директрисса мне понравилась ― такая пожилая дама старой закалки).
At the same time the word direktrissa (директрисса) can be met in the dictionaries dedicated to military and mathematical spheres. In the Russian National Corpus, there is an example of this word with another meaning: Poyasnyayu: direktrissa ― u nas eto termin, oboznachayushchy napravlenie vystrela, udara ili dvizheniya (Поясняю: директрисса ― у нас это термин, обозначающий направление выстрела, удара или движения). Nowadays people get used to using another derivational model with the -is (-ис) suffix – direktrisa (директриса). This word has more occurrences in both corpora, but it is not widely used in feminitive communities on VKontakte social network.
There are also two feminine nouns that should be mentioned: politikessa (политикесса) and politessa (политесса). Although the suffix is the same, different stems are used: polit- (полит-) and politik(политик-). The same situation is with the bloginya (блогиня) word, as the suffix is not added to the masculine profession.
All the feminitives mentioned above can be demonstrated with the help of the Google Ngram Viewer corpus. The Russian 2019 corpus was used. The horizontal axis of graphs shows the years within a given period. The vertical axis shows the relative frequency of occurrence in the corpus. Below we present some of the diagrams. PART 1: Computational Linguistics
Diagram 5: Tracking trends in the use of word-formation models for the word avtor (автор) Diagram 6: Tracking trends in the use of word-formation models for the word redaktor (редактор)
Diagram 7: Tracking trends in the use of word-formation models for the word doktor (доктор) Diagram 8: Tracking trends in the use of word-formation models for the word biznesmen (бизнесмен)
Diagram 9: Tracking trends in the use of word-formation models for the word bloger (блогер) As the Google Ngram Viewer corpus contains only printed sources, it doesn’t reflect the usage of feminitives on the Internet. As a result, it leads to the absence of some feminitives in the corpus. Nonetheless, we can highlight some results. The most productive word-formation model is using -sh (-ш) suffix that can be also proved by the previous corpus statistics. The biznesvumen (бизнесвумен) word can be also met in the printed sources in the first third of the XX century (for example, in a book titled Strana gospoda boga (Страна господа бога) that was first published in 1932). It shows that feminine noun can be also formed by using a foreign feminine word without adding any suffixes to the masculine one.
Word formation of feminitives is still a controversial issue among linguists and ordinary native speakers. The traditional approach to analysis is interpreting feminitives in terms of morphological and stylistic features. However, it does not include statistical indicators. The present study of feminine nouns in Russian corpora allowed us to reveal productive word-formation models and deviations from the traditional rules basing on the frequencies. Among the main results, the following ones should be noted: the statistical data do not show large deviations in using feminitives with suffixes -k (-к) and sh (-ш), which can mean their interchangeability in most cases; adding suffixes to feminitives is possible not only for masculine professions, but also for nouns denoting general concepts: blog, politika (блог, политика), etc.; the -iss (-исс) suffix is a variant of the -ess (-ecc) suffix that can also be found in contemporary feminine nouns; sometimes the suffixes that are used for forming feminitives can be used for forming nouns of other meanings, so the corpora statistics should always be carefully analyzed; web corpora (for example, Araneum Russicum III Maximum) allow scholars to track tendencies on the Internet while others allow to track tendencies in printed sources, mass media and everyday life.
Of course, this paper is a preliminary research for further studies on feminitives in the Russian corpora. The following experiments may relate to the extension of the list of feminitives by involving other communities and social networks and the extension of the used corpora (ruTenTen from Sketch Engine and others).