22 



Number One 



In Russian the word for 1, "one", is an adjective and thus varies in case, gender and 

 number according to the noun it enumerates. The plural forms of "one" are used with 

 nouns which occur only in the plural and with nouns or pronouns in the meaning "alone". 



MOH tjaCH "my watch" : OflHH ^a.CU "one watch" 



Mh OflHM 6HJIH TRM. "We alone were there." 



THE RUSSIAN VERB 



From the standpoint of dictionary listing the basic form of the Russian verb is 

 the infinitive . For the vast majority of Russian infinitives the characteristic signal is 

 a final-Th-,for example, 



tIMTa-TB "to read" 



nuca-Tb "to write" 



rOBOpH-TL "to speak" 



A small number of infinitives have the signals:-^ and -tm e.g. , 



UOm, "to be able" 



BeCTH "to lead" 



The Past Tense 



The formation of the Russian past tense is quite simple. There are only four forms 

 and they may be easily derived from the regular infinitive; remove the infinitive signal and 

 add the past tense signal JL- An additional a^ is suffixed to designate fem. gender, an o^ 

 for the neut. or h^ for all plural' forms. 



The small number of verbs which have past tense forms not in accordance with this 

 simple pattern will simply be listed in a reference sheet(REFERENCE). 



The Present Tense 



The Russian verb has six forms in the "present" tense: three in the singular and three 

 in the plural. There are 2 basic types of present formation and they may be exemplified 

 by the following two sets of forms: 



