The Stress of Russian Nouns in -ик and -ица

Abstract

This article presents a computational basis for a default position of stress in Russian nouns with the final sequence -ик or -иц(a) and their variants (e.g. the suffixes -ник, -овица, etc.). The position of stress in all such words is classified as root, stem, or final (desinential) and tallied. The results of the examination suggest that stress in Russian derived nouns functions to define the boundary between the root and suffix. The presence of a phonological factor in what traditionally has been seen as a strictly morphological phenomenon in the modern language is also indicated. This investigation supports conclusions made by Shapiro (1986) and experimental work by Crosswhite et al. (2003) and Lavitskaya et al. (2014) which show that stress in Russian nouns is essentially tied to the final stressable stem syllable.