A New Grammar of Russian

Abstract

The appearance of A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (henceforth: CRG) by Terence Wade indeed significant. Unfortunately, it claimed on the back cover of CRG that this is the first new reference grammar of Russian (henceforth: R) for English speakers to be published in Britain for over fifty years. This not accurate, since Unbegaun's admirable grammar, albeit adapted from the original French (Unbegaun 1951), was first published in its English guise in 1957 (Unbegaun 1957). (Wade rectifies this point on page xxiii of his Preface.) Be that as it may, with nearly 600 pages, CRG a weighty tome which, in its scope, might best be compared with the R grammars of Issatschenko (Issatschenko 1975), Garde (Garde 1980), and the fine Czech Academy grammar (Barnetova et al. 1979). Certainly there nothing on the scale of CRG to be found in the English-speaking world. In his preface Wade informs us that his grammar descriptive and based on personal research and observation, long experience of teaching..., and on a close study of reference materials by Soviet, British and American linguists (p. xxiii). Checking Wade's bibliography (pp. 540-545), the references to British and R sources are legion, but, other than Gerhart's The Russian's World (Gerhart 1974), I fail to see any mention of North American scholarship nor do I detect any reference at all to the wealth of material on the R language published in Europe. (As I shall show by and by, this failure on the part of Wade to keep abreast of relevant world-wide scholarship a major drawback, which will severely diminish the attraction of CRG.) On the other hand, Wade extremely well acquainted with R sources, and a further strong aspect of CRG that he quotes extensively from contemporary R works. Yet another admirable trait of CRG the accuracy and idiomaticness of the English translations. In Wade's introduction (pp. 1-2) we are presented with two transliteration systems of R, viz. the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the British Standards Institute (BSI). It the latter which Wade uses throughout CRG, although, as far as I can see, sparingly. The ISO in fact what commonly known as the general linguistic system, but I would point out that R x usually rendered by x in most of the world, with the Germans preferring ch' h