=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3090/paper06
|storemode=property
|title=Corpus-Based Study of Word-Formation Models of Feminitives in Contemporary Russian
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3090/paper06.pdf
|volume=Vol-3090
|authors=Ivan Mamaev,Alena Mamaeva
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ims2/MamaevM21
}}
==Corpus-Based Study of Word-Formation Models of Feminitives in Contemporary Russian==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3090/paper06.pdf
Corpus-Based Study of Word-Formation Models of Feminitives
in Contemporary Russian
Ivan Mamaeva,b, Alena Mamaeva b
a
Baltic State Technical University “Voenmeh” named after D.F. Ustinov, 1 Krasnoarmeyskaya St. Saint
Petersburg, 190005, Russia
b
Saint Petersburg State University,11 Universitetskaya Emb., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia
Abstract
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.
Keywords 1
Corpus Linguistics, Russian, Statistics, Word Formation, Feminitives
1. Introduction
One of the modern trends in the development of the mankind in the XXI century is a rise of the
women's movement in many spheres of our life: politics, science, cinematography, etc. As a result, all
changes are certainly reflected in the Russian language system. In linguistics, scholars have recently
begun to develop a great number of research on gender linguistics. Some studies are of particular interest
– the studies of word-formation models of feminitives. On social networks, users often argue about the
only correct version of a feminitive: for example, avtorka, avtorsha, avtrissa (авторка, авторша,
автрисса), etc. Of course, one can turn to traditional grammar and choose the right word to use, but one
should not forget that language is a changeable system. Any changes can be tracked in corpora – large
text collections presented in a computer format. The aim of our study is to track current trends in the word
formation of feminitives using corpus data and to suggest possible changes to the existing grammar rules.
2. Related works
Nowadays many studies on the word formation of feminitives are carried out without the use of corpus
statistics. For instance, the study [3] is aimed at analyzing feminine nouns with the -sh (-ш) suffix. The
word-formation model with this suffix is one of the means of expressing the word-formation category of
femininity. 166 lexemes from contemporary dictionaries and the Russian media space were selected for
analysis. It was observed that feminine nouns with the -sh (-ш) suffix are actively used in modern media
space without negative connotations, though some stylistic deprecations are recorded in dictionaries. At
the same time, they are often replaced by neutral word-formation models (for instance, the -k (-к) suffix,
etc.). In the previous research of the author [2], she focuses on the study of productive and unproductive
word-formation models. The author states that the users of social networks often pay attention to such
productive suffixes as -k, -in, -shits, -nits, -its (-к, -ин, -щиц, -ниц, -иц).
In [4], the author also turns to the Russian media field to study the problems of creating feminine
nouns. He proves that the task of belonging to the feminine grammatical gender is solved not only by
IMS 2021 - International Conference "Internet and Modern Society", June 24-26, 2021, St. Petersburg, Russia
EMAIL: mamaev_96@mail.ru (A. 1); mamaev_id@voenmeh.ru (A. 1); az998@mail.ru (A. 2)
ORCID: 0000-0003-3362-9131 (A. 1); 0000-0003-2041-4238 (A. 2)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 69
means of affixal derivation, but also by nominalization (upolnomochennaya – уполномоченная) and
analytical word formation (zhenshchina-president – женщина-президент), thereby he proposes to
expand the possible ways of using feminitives in media texts.
The paper [1] discusses derivational possibilities of Russian feminitives and the existing suffixal
patterns that can be changed due to modern trends in the Russian language. Along with the change in the
word-formation models, the semantic fullness of derivatives is also subject to change: the suffixes lose
their original stylistics, words tend to become common.
At the same time, some scholars try to base their research on Russian corpora. Particularly, in [5], the
author investigated the problem of the word-formation models with -schits/-chits (-шищ/-чиц) suffix
basing on both printed dictionaries and the Russian National Corpus (main and newspaper subcorpora).
The detailed analysis showed that this suffix is a productive one, it is used in the derivation of new
feminitives during recent years. It was also revealed that this suffix is used in three productive word-
formation models with verbal, substantive and adjective stems.
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.
3. Traditional word-formation models of feminine nouns in Russian
In the Russian grammar reference by N.Yu. Shvedova [6], one can find main word-formation rules of
feminine nouns. Below we present a list of main models with brief explanations. In the following
sections, it will be easier to explain the existing feminitives and the new ones.
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.
4. Experimental design
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:
70 PART 1: Computational Linguistics
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.
5. Results and Interpretation
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
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 71
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 во-
вторых, Геннадий играл давно, играл хорошо, многократно участвовал в соревнованиях,
где его могли видеть в реале, имел блестящую репутацию и пользовался среди игроков
72 PART 1: Computational Linguistics
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
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 73
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).
Table 1. Comparison of feminine nouns of different word-formation models
Frequencies (ipm) in
Frequencies (ipm) in the Araneum
Word Morpheme the Russian National
Russicum III Maximum
Corpus
redaktor (редактор)
redaktorka
-k (-к) 0 0,002318
(редакторка)
redaktorsha
-sh (-ш) 0,385438 0,019485
(редакторша)
bloger (блогер)
blogerka (блогерка) -k (-к) 0 0,001692
blogersha (блогерша) -sh (-ш) 0,006217 0,043794
bloginya (блогиня) -in (-ин) 0 0,003321
illyustrator (иллюстратор)
illyustratorka
-k (-к) 0 0,000564
(иллюстраторка)
illyustratorsha
-sh (-ш) 0,003108 0,000251
(иллюстраторша)
animator (аниматор)
animatorka
-k (-к) 0 0,000187956
(аниматорка)
animatorsha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,001816906
(аниматорша)
geymer (геймер)
geymerka
-k (-к) 0 0
(геймерка)
geymersha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,005012154
(геймерша)
koordinator (координатор)
koordinatorka
-k (-к) 0 0,002694033
(координаторка)
koordinatorsha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,000501215
(координаторша)
reper (репер)
reperka (реперка) -k (-к) 0 0,000751823
repersha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,001378342
(реперша)
avtor (автор)
avtorka (авторка) -k (-к) 0,00310837 0,024371601
avtorsha (авторша) -sh (-ш) 0,046625544 0,060208504
avtrissa (автрисса) -iss 0 0
74 PART 1: Computational Linguistics
Frequencies (ipm) in
Frequencies (ipm) in the Araneum
Word Morpheme the Russian National
Russicum III Maximum
Corpus
(-исс)
avtoritsa (авторица) -its (-иц) 0,006216739 0,003132596
avtoressa (авторесса) -ess (-есс) 0,015541848 0,00745558
lider (лидер)
liderka (лидерка) -k (-к) 0 0,004322983
lidersha (лидерша) -sh (-ш) 0,006216739 0,003821768
yurist (юрист)
yuristka (юристка) -k (-к) 0,096359459 0,025812595
yuristsha (юристша) -sh (-ш) 0 0
vrach (врач)
vrachinya (врачиня) -in (-ин) 0 0,000187956
vracheya (врачея) -e (-е) 0 0,000250608
vrachitsa (врачица) -its (-иц) 0,031083696 0,00357116
politik (политик)
politikessa
-ess (-есс) 0,012433479 0,00031326
(политикесса)
politessa (политесса) -ess (-ecc) 0 0,001002431
aktyor (актёр)
aktyorka (актерка) -k (-к) 0,211369135 0,004573591
aktrisa (актриса) -is (-ис) 10,59954044 29,56350331
tantsor (танцор)
tantsorka (танцорка) -k (-к) 0,055950653 0,005388066
tantsovshchitsa -щиц
1,367682637 2,266746808
(танцовщица) (-shchits)
fotograf (фотограф)
fotografinya
-in (-ин) 0,077709241 0,010776132
(фотографиня)
fotografistka
-k (-к) 0 0
(фотографистка)
pensioner (пенсионер)
pensionerka
-k (-к) 0,805067734 4,009034315
(пенсионерка)
pensiorinya
-in (-ин) 0 0
(пенсиориня)
pensioneressa
-ess (-ecc) 0 0
(пенсионересса)
biznesmen (бизнесмен)
biznesledi -ledi
0 0,028318672
(бизнеследи) (-леди)
biznesmensha
-sh (-ш) 0,006216739 0,006265193
(бизнесменша)
bizneswumen -vumen
0,096359459 0,304738985
(бизнесвумен) (-вумен)
pol’zovatel’ (пользователь)
pol’zovatel’nitsa
-nits (-ниц) 0 0,047114251
(пользовательница)
pol’zovatel’ka
-k (-к) 0 0
(пользователька)
reportyor (репортёр)
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 75
Frequencies (ipm) in
Frequencies (ipm) in the Araneum
Word Morpheme the Russian National
Russicum III Maximum
Corpus
reportyorsha
-sh (-ш) 0,021758587 0,016414806
(репортерша)
reportyorka
-k (-к) 0,00310837 0,001816906
(репортерка)
psikhiatr (психиатр)
psikhiatressa
-ess (-ecc) 0 0,000187956
(психиатресса)
psikhiatrinya
-in (-ин) 0 0,000187956
(психиатриня)
psikhiatrisa
-is (-ис) 0,00310837 0
(психиатриса)
psikhiatorka
-k (-к) 0 0,000125304
(психиаторка)
psikhoterapevt (психотерапевт)
psikhoterapevtka
-k (-к) 0 0,000814475
(психотерапевтка)
psikhoterapevtessa
-ess (-ecc) 0 0
(психотерапевтесса)
psikhoterapevtsha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,000125304
(психотерапевтша)
doctor (доктор)
doktorsha (докторша) -sh (-ш) 1,063062413 0,129376234
doktorka (докторка) -k (-к) 0,00310837 0,003007293
doktoritsa
-its (-иц) 0,068384132 0,010901436
(докторица)
dizayner (дизайнер)
dizaynerka
-k (-к) 0 0,003508508
(дизайнерка)
dizaynersha
-sh (-ш) 0,00310837 0,008144751
(дизайнерша)
prezident (президент)
prezidentka
-k (-к) 0 0,001691602
(президентка)
prezidentsha
-sh (-ш) 0,024866957 0,01265569
(президентша)
milliarder (миллиардер)
milliarderka
-k (-к) 0,00310837 0,000375912
(миллиардерка)
milliardersha
-sh (-ш) 0,031083696 0,018607623
(миллиардерша)
kommentator (комментатор)
kommentatorka
-k (-к) 0 0,000187956
(комментаторка)
kommentatorsha
-sh (-ш) 0,00310837 0,002944641
(комментаторша)
kapitan (капитан)
kapitanka (капитанка) -k (-к) 0,00310837 0,002318121
kapitansha
-sh (-ш) 0,394762943 0,032391048
(капитанша)
76 PART 1: Computational Linguistics
Frequencies (ipm) in
Frequencies (ipm) in the Araneum
Word Morpheme the Russian National
Russicum III Maximum
Corpus
chempion (чемпион)
chempionka
-k (-к) 0,798850995 4,59432864
(чемпионка)
chempionsha
-sh (-ш) 0,00310837 0,000063
(чемпионша)
repetitor (репетитор)
repetitorka
-k (-к) 0 0,000125304
(репетиторка)
repetitoressa
-ess (-есс) 0 0
(репетиторесса)
direktor (директор)
direktorka
-k (-к) 0 0,005074806
(директорка)
direktorshka -sh (-ш),
0 0
(директоршка) -k (-к)
direktrissa
-iss (-исс) 0,018650218 0,01428464
(директрисса)
prepodavatel’ (преподаватель)
prepodavatel’nitsa
-nits (-ниц) 0,786417516 0,538869245
(преподавательница)
prepodka (преподка) -k (-к) 0 0,00031326
prepodsha
-sh (-ш) 0 0,022554695
(преподша)
spiker (спикер)
spikerka (спикерка) -k (-к) 0 0,000125304
spikersha (спикерша) -sh (-ш) 0 0,000814475
organizator (организатор)
organizatorka
-k (-к) 0 0,001002431
(организаторка)
organizatorsha
-sh (-ш) 0,012433479 0,005450718
(организаторша)
muzykant (музыкант)
muzykantka
-k (-к) 0,00310837 0,006641105
(музыкантка)
muzykantsha
-sh (-ш) 0,428955009 0,028506628
(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
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 77
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
= 2,013. As is less than
that is equal to 46, we can find the
critical value according to the t-distribution table: , 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.
78 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)
IMS-2021. International Conference “Internet and Modern Society” 79
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.
6. Conclusion
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;
80 PART 1: Computational Linguistics
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).
7. References
[1] Burdina, E.: Gender person indicating nouns in the modern speech culture from gender-social
perspective. In: Goryzonty Sovremennoy Rusistiki (The horizons of modern Russia studies), p. 138–
144 (2020).
[2] Guzaerova, R., Kosova, V.: Specificity of feminine nouns in modern Russian media space. In:
Philology and culture, №4(50), p. 11–15 (2017).
[3] Guzaerova, R.: Bloger or Blogersha: Russian Feminitives with the Suffix -sh(a) in the Modern
Media Space. In: Proceedings of Kazan University. Humanities Series, vol. 161, №5–6, p. 105–116
(2019).
[4] Kobyakov, A.: Russky feminitive: shiroky vzglyad (The Russian feminitive: a detailed analysis). In:
Memoirs of NovSU, №8(30), p. 1–4 (2020).
[5] Mineeza, Z.: Feminitives with Suffix ‘-shits(a ) /-chits(a)’. In: Nauchnyi dialog (The Scientific
Dialogue), №7, p. 142–157 (2020).
[6] Shvedova, N.: Russkaya grammatika (The Russian grammar), vol. 1, 789 p. (1980).