A Comprehensive Russian Grammar: (Blackwell Reference Grammars)

This book aims to provide a comprehensive guide to current Russian usage, taking many of its examples from the press and contemporary literary sources. It contains graphically presented declension and conjugation tables as well a detailed indexes. There are chapters on parts of speech and sections on stress accents. There is also coverage of what are commonly found to be areas of difficulty: gender and agreement; aspectival formation and usage; the rules of word order; the categories of prepositional usage; the differentiation of long and short adjectival usage; the use of numerals, including the collectives; the verbs of motion; the use of particles; verbs of motion; and the use of the partitive genitive and genitive after negated.

Table of Contents:
The noun; the pronoun; the adjective; the numeral; the verb; the adverb' the preposition; the conjunction; the particle; word order.

About the Author :
Terence Wade was Professor Emeritus and Research Fellow in Russian Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow until his death in 2005. His previous books include Prepositions in Modern Russian, Russian Etymological Dictionary, The Russian Language Today (with Larissa Ryazanova-Clarke) and A Russian Grammar Workbook, companion volume to A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (Blackwell Publishers). He was a past Chairman and President of the Association of Teachers of Russian and a former editor of the Journal of Russian Studies.

Review :
"As the most complete, accurate, and authoritative English-language reference grammar of Russian ever published, this work supersedes two others widely used by teachers and students of Russian; every academic library ought to obtain this book." Choice "Excellent. The book succeeds admirably and is almost always illustrated, sometimes generously, by examples from contemporary journalistic and literary sources. This book is excellent and satisfies a long-felt need. At the price, the paperback is a bargain and it should be invested in now by anybody contemplating years in the study or teaching of Russian. It deserves a long and successful life." Modern Languages Review "The coverage and fresh interesting examples make Wade's grammar attractive. It provides information not available in other English-language descriptions and some of the explanations are insightful and helpful. It will certainly be a standard reference work over the next fifty years." The Slavonic Review "Essential for any Russianist's reference shelves and an important tool for any English-speaking reader of Russian. Students ... should be encouraged to buy themselves a copy." Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association "The comprehensiveness of this new reference grammar, which is referred to in its title, is complemented by a no less important feature, its practicality. On both scores, and in their combination, Prof. Wade's work is a remarkable achievement that will indeed fulfil the stated intentions to be a guide for students of the Russian language, and an aid for teachers and others who use the language professionally. It will be essential for the former, and often referred to by the latter. It is accompanied by a keen sense of the actual student learning Russian, with notes and markers concerning relative usefulness and common problems. The dual perspective is one of the Grammar's great strengths. The practicality of Prof. Wade's Grammar rests fundamentally on the clarity of presentation and ease of use ... it is the clarity - the precision and conciseness - of the explanations which guarantees that the comprehensive coverage will translate into actual advantage in terms of the student's progress. This is an invaluable book which is set to be the principal aid for students, teachers and other professionals for many years to come." Slavonica "This grammar is comprehensive indeed, written with great clarity, and very helpfully indexed. ... Special merits include an excellent discussion of aspectual usage ... If regularly updated, it is likely to remain the standard of Russian for generations of English-speaking learners." Rusistika