Russian Syntax Research Articles

Structural and Functional Analysis of Complex Compound Sentences in Russian Syntax

This article examines the role of complex compound sentences (сложносочинённые предложения, or SSPs) in Russian syntax, focusing on their significance in expressing nuanced relationships between independent clauses. Utilizing both traditional and non-traditional linguistic frameworks, the study categorizes SSPs based on their coordinating conjunctions—connective, adversative, and disjunctive—and explores how each conjunction type impacts sentence meaning and structure. The findings highlight the syntactic independence of clauses within SSPs, which provides flexibility in creating cohesive, multi-layered sentences. The study also addresses pedagogical challenges for non-native learners, including punctuation errors and semantic misinterpretations, suggesting targeted teaching strategies to enhance learners’ proficiency. Recommendations for educators include exercises on differentiating SSPs from simple sentences with homogeneous parts and targeted practice with conjunction functions. Finally, the article suggests directions for future research on complex syntactic structures in Russian and their acquisition by learners from diverse linguistic backgrounds.

E. S. Skoblikova, a linguist and a teacher (to mark the centenary of the scientist’s birth)

The article characterises the scientific legacy of Professor E. S. Skoblikova (1 June 1924 – 12 August 2016), a prominent Russian linguist, a specialist in modern Russian syntax, Russian dialectology, Russian orthography. The scientist authored monographs, university textbooks and manuals, series of articles on basic linguistic disciplines. She also compiled and edited the posthumous editions of university textbooks and fundamental scientific works of Professor A. N. Gvozdev, a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR. The relevance of E. S. Skoblikova’s scientific works is determined by the distinctive feature of the theoretical and methodological orientation of her works, namely the adherence to the traditional approaches in resolving controversial issues and the interconnection of scientific and pedagogical thought. This principle remains significant in the conditions of the equally important principle of scientific pluralism.

Specifics of syntactic structures of Russian business writing (compared with Arabic)

The object of the study is the syntactic features of modern Russian and Arabic business correspondence; the subject is the specific features of the syntax of modern Russian business documents, which become more obvious in comparison with Arabic business writing. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying the features characteristic of Russian business writing at the present stage of its development, and comparing these features with the features of Arabic business letters. Also a certain novelty is the connection made by the author between the history and culture of Russian and Arab official business correspondance styles and the transformations that they are actively occurring. One of the author’s tasks was to find out why new features of business correspondence, spreading under the influence of globalization, manifest themselves differently in different languages. The study was carried out on the basis of structural-semantic, comparative and functional approaches using methods of component analysis of the text of letters, interpretation of their structure and content, observation, description, comparison. Syntactic structure of modern Russian business writing is currently actively developing. The personal nature of a business letter increases, the ways of expressing imperativeness change, the level of emotionality increases, and all of the above is reflected in the types of syntactic structures used. In Arabic business writing, transformations are less pronounced, which is due to the history of its development and the characteristics of Arab culture. In electronic business correspondence, the syntax of Russian and Arabic business letters has similar changes. It is concluded that Russian and Arabic business writing are influenced not only by globalization processes, but also by their original ancient history, as well as Russian and Arabic culture, which determines the differences in the syntactic structure.

Быть или не быть: от полнозначности к нулю : проблема связки в современной теории русского синтаксиса

In the article the author examines one of the central problems of the Russian syntax – the problem of the copula. The point is made, that the comparative analysis of syntax in Slavonic languages conducted by R. Mrazek allowed him to call neutralizing or absence of the verbal predicate in the sentence the distinctive feature of Russian sentence. In the article the author describes different aspects of the problem: the list of copulas, their functions in the sentence, their meanings and roles in organizing of the structure and shaping of the semantics of the sentence. The author states, that diversity of the approaches to the copula is determined by multidiversional nature of the verbal component in the sentence. The verb can perform different functions in the sentence: propositional, predicative, copulative and/or predictive function, thus it can play the role of the predicate, modifier, explicator, compensator, complicator and/or copula. Contemporary understanding of the copula is given with syntactic tradition in the background.

ВОПРОС О СЛОЖНОПОДЧИНЕННОМ ПРЕДЛОЖЕНИИ С ПРИДАТОЧНОЙ ЧАСТЬЮ МЕСТА В РУССКОЙ СИНТАКСИЧЕСКОЙ НАУКЕ

The article is devoted to a comprehensive description of an issue related to the complex sentence with adverbial clause of place in Russian syntax. There isn’t unanimous opinion regarding the classification of complex sentences in modern Russian language. The term “subordinate clause” was used in the works of AH. Vostokov and N.I. Grech in the 19th century. Later, a classification, close to the present day, including additional (explanatory), attributive and adverbial clauses was proposed by I.I. Davidov. Owing to the works of F.I. Buslaev, the issue was developed further. Attempts to classify adverbial clauses belong to him. It is necessary to highlight A.M. Peshkovsky, V.A. Beloshapkov, V.V. Babaytsev and L.Yu. Maximov among the grammarians considering subordinate clauses. The structural-semantic principle in considering subordinate clauses was used by S.E. Kryuchkov and L.Yu. Maksimov. That principle (in contrast to the functional-semantic one) allows more comprehensive characterizing the sentence, since it considers the way the sentence is attached, while taking into account the semantic relations of the two parts of a complex sentence. The object of research is the analyzing of the functional and semantic types of complex sentences with the adverbial clause of place in modern Russian language on the material of Russian writers’ works.

Latin Aphoristics in the Poetics of F. M. Dostoevsky

. The article analyzes the role of Latinisms in the literary and journalistic texts of F. M. Dostoevsky. By virtue of his education, the writer was wellacquainted with Latin literature, which undoubtedly affected his poetics. Multilingualism becomes one of the polyphonic tools of the latter: combination of languages performs a characterological function, enriching the characters’ speech portrait and expanding the linguocultural context of their worldview. Latin quotations are either provided by Dostoevsky as independent sentences, or integrated into the text and adjusted to the Russian syntax and grammar. Truncated or modified aphorisms integrated in the characters’ words are an attempt to substantiate their beliefs through an appeal to cultural constants. Most often, a change of this sort takes on a parodic character and turns into an alteration of meanings and a denial of spiritual values. Expressions from the Catholic culture occupy a special place in Dostoevsky’s poetics. On the one hand, Latin Catholic names complement the figurative embodiment of the Christian faith. On the other hand, while being the object of irony, ridicule or criticism, for Dostoevsky church Latin formulas illustrate an important topic in Roman Catholic Christianity: using the example of the so-called “Roman question,” the writer develops the idea of the life and death of religion in Europe.

Предложения с несогласованными определениями, их восприятие и понимание

This paper aims at describing a fragment of the “dynamic syntax” of the Russian language, namely the function of the adverb and the case form with a preposition in the structure of the utterance. They often function as uncoordinated attributes resulting from the word form pass-ing from the sphere of direct verb submission to the noun phrase. Constructions of the type “okno naprotiv” (window opposite something) are differently evaluated by linguists and pro-voke discussion. However, in terms of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics, it is more important that utterances appear with a syntactic homonymy – the possibility of a double (al-ternative) syntactic division. The general semantic interpretation of the utterance depends on the listener’s choice of one of the options. For example, the phrase “On ne nashel brauninga v rukave” (He did not find the browning in the sleeve) can be interpreted by establishing the connections “ne nashel – v rukave” (did not find – in the sleeve) or “brauninga – v rukave” (browning – in the sleeve). The author provides the actual examples from Russian fiction and journalism. The prerequisites affecting the perception and understanding of such patterns are investigated. It is shown that the choice of one of the variants of analysis is influenced by: a) common sense, that is, the cognitive and verbal experience of the listener, b) linguistic fac-tors, including the rules of combinatorics, word order, etc. A connection is established be-tween the internal structural transformations taking place in the speaker’s and the listener’s consciousness and general trends in the development of Russian syntax. Among these, consideration is given to the tendency to weaken syntactic relations, the activation of constructions based on lexical-semantic associations, centripetal and centrifugal tendencies in syntax, etc.

Межвузовский научный семинар «Переходные явления в языке и речи» памяти профессора В. В. Бабайцевой (Коломна, 10 февраля 2021 г.)

This review provides the summaries of reports presented in the scientific seminar “Transient phenomena in language and speech” dedicated to the memory of Professor Vera Vassilyevna Babaytseva, which was held online on the digital platform of the State University of Humanities and Social Studies (Kolomna, Russia). The seminar included a presentation of a paper by Babaytseva on the syntactic functions of the pronouns ty and vy that remained unpublished during the author’s lifetime. Also, a number of reports on topical issues of the Russian syntax were presented: the functioning of stable comparisons svetlo kak dnem and temno kak noch’yu in the structure of an impersonal sentence; the semantics and syntactics of predicatives vidno and slyshno in a complex sentence with complement clauses; performative inseparable utterances; variability in language and speech in correlation with the concept of “norm” when related to the word as a lexical or syntactical system unit; the contrast of the conditional-temporal logical-grammatical model (N1 - eto kogda ...) and the explanatory one (N1/Pron - eto pro N4). The information on the works of recent years implementing the ideas of the structural-semantic direction of modern Russian studies was introduced at the seminar.

On Changes in Complex Sentences Syntax in the Russian Language of the 17th Century (on Material of Siberian Petitions)

The article deals with the problem of forming grammatical (syntactic) norms of the Russian national language based on the material of Siberian monuments of business writing of the 17th century. Relevance of the work is determined by the fact that Russian syntax and the history of the Russian language in Siberia are insufficiently studied, as well as by the need to expand the source base of such research. Scientific novelty of the work consists in the study of historical syntax of the complex sentences in the texts of Siberian petitions, most of which are not published and has not previously been brought to the historical-grammatical research. The high source value and linguistic informativeness of the Siberian petitions of the 17th century are proved. These texts analyze complex sentences with paratactic and hypotactic connections. The article traces the peculiarities of their use in monuments of local business writing in the aspect of developing syntactic norms of the Russian national language. The arsenal of compositional and subordinate conjunctions used in such sentences is defined. The changes in the structure of complex sentences are found out. They reflect live folk speech, language consciousness of the Russian people in Siberia and at the same time they are typical for the syntactic system of the Russian national language in the initial period of its formation.

Length Of Constituent As A Relevant Factor In Russian Syntax

The article focuses on cases when the length of the constituent is relevant for Russian syntax and leads to ungrammaticality or partial acceptability of some structures. The list of phenomena under consideration includes ‘one-word restrictions’; differences between complement clauses of matrix verbs in indicative vs. imperative, include constructions with ‘predicatives’, special properties of nominalizations, structures with short embedded clauses, and so on. I show that the ‘length restrictions’ are in fact of different nature: some are related to discourse factors (deictic / non-deictic semantics, discourse coherence, imperative addressee orientation), while others are related to parsing needs (grammatical units are typically shorter than lexical ones, main clauses are more explicit than embedded ones). Another feature of length restrictions is that they are never holistic / integral: the particular rule usually holds for a particular type of structure, not for the whole domain of syntax (this is what makes our data different from purely syntactic restrictions, such as c-command requirements and island restrictions, which often cover a broad set of constructions and grammatical contexts).

Problems of Teaching Syntactic Units in the Modern University Course of Russian Syntax

This article considers the problem of teaching main syntactic units – phrase and sentence – during the university course devoted to the syntax of the simple sentence. Terminological innovations and principles of systematization of Russian syntactic units are provided. The question is raised on the efficiency of two approaches to teaching syntax at university, i.e. traditional based on typological linguistics and combined. The advantages of the latter approach are described.

ПРАГМА-ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ ПОТЕНЦИАЛ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАТИВНОГО ТЕКСТА В ПРАКТИКЕ ПРЕПОДАВАНИЯ РУССКОГО ЯЗЫКА КАК ИНОСТРАННОГО

The article describes language tools that ensure the functioning of representative speech acts in the field of educational and scientific communication. The main focus of the article is on the implementation of representations in the field of written scientific communication. Three types of representative speech acts - text-actualization, text-informing and text-ascertaining, identified as a result of analysis on the material of textbooks on Russian linguistics (Russian syntax) are presented in the article.BR We propose to use the conceptual apparatus of pragmalinguistics in the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language, in particular, in the language classes of the specialty deeper and wider, in particular, to more actively address the notion of intention as a methodological tool in shaping the future Russian language philologists.

О СИНТАКСИЧЕСКИХ ЕДИНИЦАХ И СИНТАКСИЧЕСКИХ МИФАХ (ЧАСТЬ 2)

Статья посвящена русской грамматической традиции в установлении единиц синтаксиса, рассматриваемой с позиций понимания науки как системы операций с утверждениями. Анализируются два компонента формирования этой традиции: собственные утверждения ученых касательно единиц и объектов синтаксиса и интерпретация утверждений предшественников, которая может находиться на разном расстоянии от оригинальной научной парадигмы, в которой эти утверждения изначально были сделаны. Выявляется ряд неточностей в оперировании утверждениями, сделанными классиками отечественной лингвистики А. А. Шахматовым и В. В. Виноградовым, у их последователей Abstract Within the modern methodological framework of regarding science as operations with statements (B. Latour, S. Woolgar) the article aims at answering the question: which approaches to syntactic units could really be labelled as the Russian grammar tradition Two aspects constituting this tradition are discussed: independent statements made by outstanding scientists (original texts) and their later interpretations (posttexts) which may be rather distant from the original paradigm these statements were made in. Comparing the original texts and later posttexts, we discover and try to systematize the misrepresentations and misinterpretations which are further spread among new generations of linguists via internet. Thus, comparison of statements on syntactic units made by the fathers of Russian linguistics A. A. Shakhamatov and V. V. Vinogradov and their re ection in the works of their successors reveals a number of inaccuracies which themselves form a tradition. The fact that substantial misinterpretations of the fathers syntactic views can be found even in classical university textbooks is illustrated by introducing M. V. Lomonosov and A. A. Shakhamatov in V. A. Beloshapkovas wellknown Russian syntax for universities as the founders of the allegedly traditional idea that two syntactic units should be distinguished: sentence (predlozhenie) and word combination (slovosochetanie). Also we demonstrate the following types of misrepresentations and misinterpretations: 1) the tendency of integrating Shakhamatovs and Vinogradovs views on syntactic units into the structuralistic levelbased approach to language 2) the distortion of causal relations in textbook explanations why this or that scholar formulated his or her idea of syntactic units and 3) the excessively broad or narrow approach to the idea of succession which can be selected by authors of posttexts to defend their own position in Russian grammar tradition and to cross scienti c opponents out of it. Recognizing that some of these inaccuracies arise from the original texts themselves (changes in the scholars views during his life ambiguous statements combination of terminological and nonterminological usage of the same word), we argue that a lot of them still stem from a conscious or unconscious wish of an author of a textbook or other posttext to present an integrated view of the Russian grammar tradition rather than investigate the real history of operations with statements on syntactic units in it.

Contrastive Analysis of Bulgarian and Russian Syntax Peculiarities

[Rev. of: Gradinarova Alla A., Essays on the Comparative Syntax of Bulgarian and Russian, Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 2017, 500 pp.] This article presents a review of the book by a major Bulgarian researcher of Russian, professor of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Alla Gradinarova, whose scholarly interests focus mainly on the contrastive syntax of Bulgarian and Russian. In the new monograph, the author concentrates largely on the points of divergence in these languages stemming from their typological differences: passive voice and syntactic impersonality, word order, communicatively marked phrasal templates, various types of multi-clause structures ranging from verbal adverb phrases to complex and asyndetic sentences, etc. The contrastive analysis of the language data helps to reveal significant characteristics of the studied phenomena. This allows the use of the obtained results and data not only in typology and contrastive linguistics, but also in the study of the Russian language, as the approach of the author in her studies is based on a profound analysis of Russian data. The book constitutes a major contribution to studies in contrastive syntax of Slavic languages.

The project of a deeply tagged parallel corpus of Middle Russian translations from Latin

Tagged parallel corpora are powerful tools for the analysis of natural language. Moreover, for historical linguistics, whose most peculiar shortcoming is lack of living native speakers, corpora — as paper or electronic collections of written texts — are the main source of linguistic information. Old and Middle Russian are well-documented languages, and a host of manuscripts in both idioms — including those containing numerous translations — are available for investigation. Nevertheless, up to now there is no parallel translational corpus of Middle Russian. Thus, a number of important written sources containing information valuable for linguists, literary scholars and historians cannot be studied properly. This article provides a preliminary account of the project of a deeply tagged parallel corpus of Middle Russian translations from Latin. Such corpus may prove useful in the formal description of the translation techniques of the time, which may help with dividing the anonymous texts of the time into several groups based on their language features. Such grouping may help with authorship attribution and, consequently, with incorporating each translation into a proper cultural landscape. From the linguistic point of view, such corpus could provide researchers with crucial information on the vocabulary, morphology and syntax of Middle Russian with an emphasis on the argument structure of the verbs, usage of borrowed lexical items and set expressions and professional skills of the ancient translators. The article gives an outline of the crucial features of the prospective Middle Russian translational corpus, its possible primary contents, text standardization and annotation principles, as well as the reasons for not using a theory-neutral syntactic apparatus, characteristic of the existing historical corpora of ancient Indo-European languages, such as TOROT or PROIEL. An explanation of how the potential users of this corpus could benefit from our non-standard tagging principles is given.

‘I say …’: Some aspects of 19th-century Russian syntax

The paper deals with many problems related to our understanding of 19th-century Russian. Our main claim is that what may seem straightforward and nearly identical to the contemporary usage often displays significant difference in semantic and syntactic patterns. This difference, however, is usually ‘latent’, and special efforts are needed to unearth it. The paper is focused on one specific construction with a parenthetical govorju ja ‘I say’. It is shown that 19-century usage differs from what a modern speaker of Russian would expect, both semantically and syntactically.

Актуальные процессы современного русского синтаксиса

The paper is devoted to the tendencies of syntactic development and functioning of syntactic units in contemporary Russian prose. The recent syntactic processes (reduction of the syntactic relationships, simplification, compression, contamination of syntactic units, integration and disintegration of its components, etc.) are considered in the aspects of language, speech, and text. The author provides a critical analysis of the analytic progress of Russian syntax on the basis of contemporary prosaic discourse (e.g. L. Petrushevskaya, S. Dovlatov, V. Sorokin, V. Makanin, T. Tolstaya, V. Pelevin, S. Bolmat, M. Palei, etc.) and screenplay. Today screenwriting became the main occupation of many Russian authors such as M. Mareeva, A. Mindadze, O. Osetinsky, and others. Contemporary discourse stimulates the development of new syntactic phenomena. The main task is to analyze the qualification of syntactic units (combinations of words, sentences, multicomponent complex statements, syntactic complex, direct speech, etc.) and to make evident the syntactic organization of contemporary Russian prose and screenplay. Syntactic complex is considered as a formed unit of text organization and direct speech is considered as a unique syntactic unit among other types of speech.

Formation of the Ukrainian Syntactic Terminology: National Principles in 20 – 30ies of the 20th Century

The tradition of usage the national language foundation for Ukrainian syntactic terminology was continued іn linguistic works of the 20s – 30s of the 20th century. Such scholars as O. B. Kurylo, K. T. Nimchynov, I. I. Ogijenko, M. Perehinets, A. N. Sinyavsky, M. M. Sulyma and others support term creating process on the base of Ukrainian language. Terminological material illustrates the efforts of Ukrainian scientists to find motivated and transparent terms on the national ground, so their works will get criticism and accusations in nationalism. From the 30s of the 20th century theoretical developments in syntax and grammar of the Ukrainian language became slowlier in general. Supporters of Soviet ideology criticized linguists because of deliberate detachment from borrowed terminology, it caused scientists’ repression and the contempt of many grammatical works, textbooks, dictionaries etc. Using the terms of Russian grammar is domineering because of development and impact of studies on Russian syntax. The source of our modern terminology is Ukrainian grammar: Syntax (1935) by N. A. Kaganovich and G. V. Shevelev, which certified the basic terms of Ukrainian syntax: proste, skladne; povne, nepovne; poshyrene, neposhyrene; rozpovidne, pytalne, oklychne; osobove y bezosobove; rechennia skladne skladnopidriadne, skladnosuriadne; bezspoluchnykove etc. The choice of specific terms to denote syntactic concepts – is so called swing on an axis “own – borrowed”. During the formation of Ukrainian syntactic terminology linguists chose transparent nomination focused on native language. Authenticity of terminology arose sharply and was decisive for the formation of Ukrainian scientific language.

Dean S. Worth In Memoriam

Dean S. Worth In Memoriam Henning Andersen The Slavic linguistics community lost one of its great leaders in 2016. Dean Stoddard Worth, who lived in retirement in Lititz, Pennsylvania, passed away after a long illness on 29 February at the age of 88 years. Worth, who was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1927, earned his BA at Dartmouth College, studied Slavic languages in Paris at the École nationale des langues vivantes and at the Sorbonne (Diploma and Certificat 1952) and went on to Harvard, where he completed the PhD in 1956 with a dissertation on a problem in Russian syntax, written under the supervision of Roman Jakobson. In 1957 he hired on at UCLA, where he rose through the ranks, retiring in 1994. During his career Worth made significant contributions in Russian linguistics, descriptive as well as historical, with early publications on syntactic problems and numerous papers on morphophonemics and morphology, especially word formation. In many other studies he applied linguistic analysis to Russian texts from all periods, chronicles as well as literary, from the Igor’ Tale to Kantemir. He produced more than a dozen papers on rime and metrics, both in classical and in oral literature, where he showed a special interest in the Russian lament. His many studies of the language of these many text types from different periods formed the background for contributions to our understanding of the historical development of the Russian literary language. Besides publications in Russian linguistics, Worth wrote several studies of the southern Kamchatka language Kamchadal (Russian Itel’men). He also edited and coedited several conference volumes and was editor of the International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics from its first issue (1959) to its last (2006). In between he wrote some fifty reviews, about a quarter of the items in his list of publications. Two collections of Worth’s research articles were published (1977, 2006). The latter lists his publications through 2004. Among Worth’s book-length publications are a volume of edited Kamchadal texts, a Kamchadal dictionary, a Russian derivational dictionary (1970), a bibliography of Russian word formation (1977), a two-volume bibliography of Slavic linguistics (1966, 1970), and a monograph on the development of Russian grammar writing (1983). At UCLA Worth played a decisive role in his department’s development into a preeminent center of Slavic studies, the result of judicious hiring and a [End Page 269] stream of visiting lecturers and professors from Slavic countries. He served several terms as department chair, as director of the Advisory Committee of the UCLA Center for Russian and East European Studies, as well as on a variety of campus-wide committees. Beyond the walls of the university, Worth served on, and at times chaired, both the American and the International Committee of Slavists and at various times was a consultant to the RAND Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Sciences Research Council. Over the years Worth was awarded research funding from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the International Research and Exchange Board, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1984 he was awarded the UCLA College of Letters and Science Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching, Research, and Service. In 1992 he received the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Scholarship from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. He was honored by colleagues with a Festschrift to celebrate his 65th birthday, and former students marked his 70th birthday and 40th anniversary at UCLA with a Festschrift for him in 1997. His students and colleagues will remember him for his high standards in teaching and scholarship, his generosity, his hospitality, and his spirit of conviviality. Dean Worth is survived by his wife, Professor Emerita Emily Klenin, and by a niece and two nephews. Henning Andersen Slavic Languages and Cultures Department University of California Los Angeles Humanities Bldg. Ste. 322 Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA andersen@ucla.edu Received: October 2016 References Birnbaum, Henrik and Michael S. Flier, eds. (1995) The language and verse of Russia: In honor of Dean S. Worth on his sixty-fifth birthday. Moscow: Izdatel’skaja firma Vostočnaja literatura RAN...

Hydrogen Oxygenovich: Crafting Russian as a language of science in the late nineteenth century

Until the 1860s, science in Russia was principally conducted in Latin, French, and German. In the years leading up to and following the creation of the Russian Chemical Society in 1868, Russian chemists – treated in this article as both a representative sample of Russian scientists and also practitioners of the flagship science of the period – debated both the merits of developing a nomenclature that would enable Russian to “hold” modern inorganic and organic chemistry, and the practicability of doing so. The article explores debates over whether Russian syntax could be adapted to represent chemical compounds according to emerging western conventions or in a sui generis manner, as well as the struggles of Russian scientists to use French and German to communicate with their foreign counterparts, arguing that the details of these debates highlight both the fruitfulness and the limits of using “standardization” as a framework for linguistic codification.