Alternation of sounds in the bases of the present and future tenses of verbs. Alternation of sounds Alternation of sounds in verbs

Why do words alternate sounds? This occurs during the formation of grammatical forms of words. That is, sounds in the same morpheme, for example in a root, can replace each other. This replacement is called alternation. Let us note right away that we will talk about phonetic processes, and not about the spelling of words.

In certain cases, not only vowel sounds alternate, but also consonants. Most often, alternation is found in roots, suffixes and prefixes.

Moss - moss, carry - carry, cool - cooler, friend - friends - be friends - at the root of the word;

circle - mug, daughter - daughters, winter - winter, valuable - valuable - in suffixes;

wait - wait, call - convene, rub - rub - in prefixes.

There are two types of alternations: historical (they cannot be explained, they arose a long time ago and are associated with the loss of vowel sounds [ъ], [ь] (сънъ - съна, стьь - to flatter) or with the inexplicable identity of consonant sounds (run - run) and phonetic ( positional in a different way, since they depend on the position of the sound in the word [nΛga - nok], they can be explained from the point of view of the modern Russian language, for example, the alternation [g//k] arose because the consonant sound is preserved before the vowel, and in at the end of the word the sound is deafened and changes its sound quality).

Historical alternations

Phonetic (positional) alternations

Historical alternations are revealed during word formation and form change.

Phonetic (positional) can be determined by the reduction of vowels and assimilation of consonant sounds.

There are many fluent vowels when changing one-syllable and two-syllable nouns according to cases [o, e, and// -]:

mouth - mouth, ice - ice, stump - stump;

fire - fire, knot - knot, wind - wind, lesson - lesson, nail - nail, hive - hive;

bucket - buckets, window - windows, needle - needles, egg - eggs.

There are also fluent vowels in short adjectives:

short is short, bitter is bitter, funny is funny, long is long, cunning is cunning.

In the roots of different types of verbs, alternations of vowels and consonants also occur:

touch - touch, inspect - inspect, collect - collect, send - send, light - light, understand - understand, squeeze - squeeze.

It is important to know the alternation of sounds in order to correctly apply spelling rules when difficulties arise with writing letters in different parts of speech. If you don’t recognize the alternation, you can make a mistake during morphemic analysis, when you highlight parts of a word.

Read about the spelling of roots with alternation in the "Spelling" category.

When forming personal-numerical forms, many verbs have different sound changes basics.

So, for verbs first conjugation in education forms 2nd And 3rd person singular And 1st And 2nd person plural alternations occur ( c/h") And ( g/f), For example: bake, bake, bake, bake, bake, bake; coast, take care, take care, take care, take care, take care . In these same forms, hard final consonant stems alternate with soft ones: I carry, I carry, I carry, I carry, I carry, I carry .

For verbs second conjugation alternation of final consonants of the stem occurs in forms 1st person singular. In these forms, soft dental consonants alternate with sibilants, and soft labial consonants alternate with combinations of sounds “ labial+l"", For example: flying, flying, flying, flying, flying, flying; see, see, see, see, see, see; love, love, loves, love, love, love; endure, endure, endure, endure, endure, endure .

Sound relationships between the stems of infinitives and the stems of the present (future) tense

When forming personal-numerical forms of the indicative mood, special considerations should be taken into account types of sound relationships between the stems of the infinitive and the present (future) tense indicative verbs:

a) for verbs of the third productive class with the infinitive stem in - ova(t)/-eva(t) in present (future) tense forms this suffix is replaced by the suffix -y[j]-:

bargain ova t - bargaining wow t [topr yj yt], night Eve th - night wow t [night" at j ut];

b) for monosyllabic verbs with the infinitive stem - s – and the prefixed verbs derived from them in the bases of the present (future) tense there is an alternation ( ы/oj }:

V s t-v oh T [ V oj yt] (howl - they will howl),

m s yum oh T [ m oj yt] (wash - they will wash).

Exception makes up a verb be , which has the following personal-numeric forms: will, will, will, will, will, will;

c) for monosyllabic verbs with the infinitive stem - And (t ) and prefixed verbs formed from them in the bases of the present (future) tense there is an alternation ( u/j }:

P And th – drinking[P "j yt] (drink - drink),

l And t - pour[l "j yt] (pour out - pour out).

Exceptions verbs in this group shave, rot and live .

Verb shave refers to first conjugation and forms the following personal-numerical forms of the present tense: shave, shave, shave, shave, shave, shave . The same endings are derived from shave prefix verbs ( shave, shave ) and reflexive verb to shave .

Verb rot and the prefixed verbs formed from it have the following personal-numerical forms: rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting .

Verb live (as well as the prefixed verbs derived from it) forms the following personal-numerical forms: I live, I live, I live, I live, I live, I live ;

d) to the basics of infinitives in - whose in the forms of the present and future perfective tenses are added - G - or - To -:

take (whose) - take G(ut), prote(ch) – prote To(ut);

e) for some verbs with the infinitive stem - With – alternations occur in the forms of the present (future) tense (s/d), (s/t) or (s/b) :

ve With(ti) – ve d(ut), color With(ti) – color T(ut), gre With(ti) – gre b(ut), upa With(t) – upa d(ut);

e) at the verb sing in personal-numerical forms of the present tense fundamentally occurs alternation (e/oj) (sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing ), and the verb dress the basis is growing sound [ n ]: dress, dress, dress, dress, dress, dress .

Different types of sound relationships between two verb stems are also described on p.9.

Reasons for the absence of some personal-numerical forms in individual verbs

Some verbs for different reasons Not all forms have present or future tenses:

1) verbs win And convince never not used in forms first person singular;

2) impersonal verbs in present and future tense have only form third person singular(evening, dawn);

3) verbs that name such actions, which performed by several subjects, not used in singular forms(guests diverge home, students will disperse on vacation);

4) verbs that name actions, which cannot be performed by people, do not have forms of the first And second person (rust, sprout, bush, oxidize, mold and under.).

Formation of future tense forms in imperfective verbs

If perfective verbs have a synthetic (consisting of one word) form of the future tense, in which the meanings of person and number are expressed using endings, then imperfective verbs form the future tense in a different way.

Meaning of future tense at verbs imperfect form is expressed analytical forms.

Analytical forms of the future tense consist of auxiliary verb be in personal-numeric forms, which express the grammatical meanings of mood, tense, person and number, and infinitive, naming the action, that is, expressing the lexical meaning of the verb. For example, verb read has the following forms of the future tense:

Basic terms

Questions

1. From what stem of the verb are the present tense forms of the imperfect form and the future tense forms of the perfect form formed?

2. With the help of what morphemes are the forms of verbs of the present tense and the future tense of the perfect form formed?

3. What is the name for changing a verb in persons and numbers?

4. How many types of conjugation do verbs have?

5. What personal-numerical endings do verbs of the first conjugation have?

6. What personal-numerical endings do verbs of the second conjugation have?

7. Verbs of which productive classes belong to the first type of conjugation?

8. What productive verbs belong to the second type of conjugation?

9. How is the type of conjugation of verbs of non-productive classes determined?

10. Which verbs with unstressed personal-numerical endings belong to the second type of conjugation?

11. Which verbs and why do they lack some personal-numeric forms?

12. Why are the future tense forms of imperfective verbs classified as analytical?

13. How are the future tense forms of imperfective verbs formed?

§ 70. Speech sounds that are part of more complex units of language (morphemes, words, etc.), during the formation of different grammatical forms or other cognate words, can be modified and replaced by one another (cf., for example, root vowels in Russian words: old – old man – old man , new – new – novelty , white – whitewash – whitish; final consonants of the root in the following words: Friend- O friend[ʌdnig"b] – buddy – Friends , leg – leg – leg – little leg; final consonants of the suffix in nouns: collective farmer – collective farmer , schoolboy; consonants as part of the prefix of verbs: open[ʌtkrat"] – beat off[ʌdb "ft"] etc. This phenomenon is called alternating sounds, or alternation(from lat. alternatio– “alternation, change”). Alternation is usually defined as the interchange of sounds within a particular morpheme.

Let's compare similar definitions of this concept proposed by the authors of different works: "ALTERNATING , alternation,– interchange of sounds within the same morpheme in different words or word forms”, “interchange of sounds within a morpheme in different cases of its use (as part of different words or word forms)”, “replacement of some sounds by others in the same part of the word ", which occurs "during the formation and change of words."

With this understanding of the alternation of sounds (or phonemes), sometimes a significant, in our opinion, clarification is made: alternating sounds “must occupy the same place (emphasis added. – V.N.) as part of the same morpheme." This idea is emphasized in some definitions of the concept under consideration; alternation of sounds is defined as "a change of sounds occupying the same place in a morpheme in different cases of its use," or: "the fact of the difference in sounds occupying the same place in the sound shell of the same morpheme in different cases of its use."

Some linguists recognize as alternation only such interchanges of sounds within a morpheme that are regular in nature, for example: “By sound alternations we mean such a change in the sound composition of a morpheme that is regular in nature and associated with the alternation of certain morphological positions.” It seems that such a categorical statement does not correspond to reality. It is hardly possible to recognize the interchange of consonants in Russian word forms as regular Friend – friends, watch over – guard, replacing a vowel sound with zero A in word form hare(cf. hare), vowel And in word form one(cf. one) etc. Nevertheless, such phenomena should be recognized precisely as alternation of sounds. Obviously, it would be more correct to talk about different degrees of regularity in the alternation of sounds, as some linguists, in particular V. A. Vinogradov, do.

As already noted, to denote the phenomenon considered here, along with the term “alternation”, the term “alternation”, which is of Latin origin, is used, which is convenient in that it allows the formation of derivative terminological names, such as “alternant”, “alternation series (sounds, phonemes)". Alternants are called sound units (“sound quantities”) participating in the alternation, i.e. sounds, phonemes, sometimes combinations of phonemes that replace each other when alternating. Under alternating row is understood as a set of alternants participating in the alternation process, i.e. replacing each other as part of a certain morpheme, for example, consonants g–g" – k – f – w at the root of the following words and word forms: nog-a, nog-i, nog, nog-noy, nok-ka; m – m" – ml" fundamentally: feed – feed – I feed.

§ 71. From the examples given above (see § 70) of the alternation of sounds in the modern Russian language, it is clear that in some cases the interchange of sounds is associated with certain phonetic conditions (cf., for example, the alternation of root vowels in words old – old man – old man and etc.; alternation of root consonants in word forms Friend – friend - about a friend, consonants in the prefix of verbs open – beat off etc.), in other cases, the interchange of sounds is in no way connected with the phonetic conditions of their use in modern language (alternation of consonants in words Friend – buddy, leg – leg, schoolboy – schoolgirl and etc.). On this basis, alternations of sounds are divided into two main types - phonetic and non-phonetic alternations, or phonetically conditioned and phonetically unconditioned. The first (phonetic alternations) are sometimes also called positional, allophonemic, or living. The latter (non-phonetic alternations) are most often called historical, less often - traditional, non-positional, phonemic, morphological, grammatical, dead, etc.

Phonetic These are the alternations of sounds that are determined phonetically, depend on phonetic conditions, on the phonetic position, or position, in a word (hence the name “positional alternations”). In this case, sounds belonging to the same phoneme alternate, i.e. different backgrounds, or allophones, allophonemes of a given phoneme (hence the name “allophonemic alternations”). In other words, with phonetic alternation, “alternants are sounds that mutually exclude each other in different phonetic positions, i.e., belonging to the same phoneme.” According to the definition of A. A. Reformatsky, phonetic are those alternations in which “the change in sound is due to position and variants or variations of the same phoneme alternate, without changing the composition of phonemes in morphemes.”

Phonetic alternations of sounds are the result of changes in phonemes, which were discussed in detail above (see § 67–69). Depending on the type of positional changes of phonemes in the speech stream (actually positional or combinatorial changes), actual positional and combinatorial alternations are distinguished among phonetic alternations of sounds. According to M.I. Matusevich, phonetic, or living (in the author’s terminology), alternations of sounds “depend on one or another neighborhood of consonants ( combinatorial alternations) or from the position in the word ( positional alternations)".

Phonetic alternations are widely represented in modern Russian, where vowels usually alternate with vowels, consonants with consonants (typical examples of phonetic alternations of vowels and consonants in the Russian language were given in § 68–70).

Obviously, we can talk about the phonetic alternation of different sounds (vowels and consonants) with the absence of sound, or zero sound. In the linguistic literature, attention is drawn, in particular, to the alternation of consonants with a zero sound in the Russian language. We are talking about the loss of consonant sounds when consonants come together in a word, for example, when pronouncing Russian words abyss, feeling, envious, happy, late and many others. This alternation also applies to vowel sounds.

A distinctive feature of phonetic alternation of sounds is that, as a rule, it is not reflected in writing. Exceptions, at least in Russian, are relatively rare, for example: beat up – get dirty, cut - saw, woo - wedding.

Non-phonetic These are the alternations of sounds that in modern language are not determined phonetically, do not depend on the phonetic conditions of use, on the phonetic position (hence the name “non-positional alternations”). With non-phonetic alternations within a morpheme, not individual variants, backgrounds, or allophones of one or another phoneme are interchanged (as with phonetic alternations), but different phonemes or combinations of phonemes (hence the name “phonemic alternations”). According to the definition of A. A. Reformatsky, alternations are considered non-phonetic, in which “the change in sound does not depend on positions, but different phonemes alternate, due to which the morphemes receive a different phonemic composition in their different variants.”

With non-phonetic alternations, a wide variety of phonetic, or more precisely phonemic, units (“quantities”) can be subject to interchange, for example:

– vowel and vowel (cf. Russian deaf - deaf, dry - dry - dry, lay - stil, finish – finish, look at – consider; German sprech-en(speak) - sprich-t(speaks) - sprach(said) - ge-sproch-en(said) Sohn(son) - Sohn-e(sons); Lithuanian grqz-inti(return, return) – griz-ti(return, return));
– vowel and consonant (cf. Russian beat – I hit , pee - drink , shi-th - sew );
– vowel and combination of a vowel followed by a consonant (cf. Russian sing - sing , roof – cut , accept - accept, begin - begin, press - press);
– a vowel and the absence of a vowel, or zero sound (the so-called false alternation) (cf. Russian dream - sn-a, day - day-ya, must-tear - cut, move away – push away, circle-ok - circle-k-a, catcher - catch-ts-a, fox-y - fox );
– consonant and consonant (cf. Russian friend - friends – friendship, hand – hand, dry – sush-it, bear - bear-y, weight - ved-y, pla-ti - weave-y, light-it - candle-a - about-shine-at, root - side-ok, file-nick - file-nich-ek; Lithuanian ves-ti(news) – ved-u(leading) ant-is(duck) - anc-iukas(duckling), gaid-ys(rooster) - gaidz-iai(lose) - Ver-lus-t(a loss); French dire|d"i:r] (speak) – dissons(we speak);
– consonant and combination of two consonants (cf. Russian catch - catch, buy - buy, count - count.

In languages in which short and long sounds are phonologically distinguished, e.g. short and long sounds of the same quality act as different phonemes; they can also alternate with each other (cf., for example, Latin sede-o(sitting) - sdde-s(sitting) video-o(see); Lithuanian bu-ti(be) - bu-vo(was), siH-ti(sew) - siu-vo(pour) – li-jo(lil)). Such alternations, i.e. alternations of sounds (phonemes), differing only in longitude - brevity, are called quantitative, or quantitative(as opposed to the above high quality alternations, in which alternating sounds differ qualitatively - based on location, method of formation, etc.).

In those languages that have diphthongs in their sound system, the latter can alternate with each other (cf., for example: German Braut(bride) - Braut-e(brides – plural), Maus(mouse) - Mous-chen(mouse); Lithuanian diev-as(God) - deiv-έ(snow) - snaig-έ(snowflake), laiz-yti(lick) – liez-uvis(language)).

Diphthongs can also alternate with monophthong vowels and other phonetic units (cf. English tol-d(said) - tell(say); Lithuanian braid-yti braid"-i:t"ij (wander) – bris-ti(Love) - myl-eti(be in love), rau-ti(tear out) - rov-έ(pulled out).

As can be seen from the above examples, non-phonetic alternations of sounds (as opposed to phonetic alternations) are usually reflected in writing.

Non-phonetic alternations in the past, during different periods of language development, were mainly phonetic, phonetically determined (hence their name - “historical alternations”). Subsequently, due to the cessation of the corresponding phonetic laws, they ceased to be phonetically determined and were preserved in modern languages by tradition (hence the name “traditional alternations”). So, for example, in the Old Russian language the back consonants G[g], To[k], X could only be used before front vowels; in position before front vowels they regularly changed into corresponding sibilants and[z], h[With], w[s]. In modern Russian, both consonant sounds can be used under similar phonetic conditions, i.e. non-phonetic consonant alternations possible h – f, k – h, x – w, for example, words (word forms) like run - run, baker – stove, plowman - plowing. Alternation of vowels o, uh[e] with zero sound is associated with a change in former reduced vowels b, b depending on their phonetic position: in the strong position they were regularly changed into the corresponding vowels of full formation, and in the weak position they were lost. Hence in modern Russian the alternation: dream(from son, where the root reduced vowel was in a strong position), – sleep(from son, where this vowel was in a weak position), day(from day) – day(from day). Similarly, vowel alternation arose And[i] with zero sound in place of the corresponding tense reduced, used in the position before the consonant j(cf.: fox – fox).

In the non-phonetic alternations that occur in the modern state of different languages, certain patterns can be traced, which, however, appear very inconsistently. For example, in modern Russian, vowel alternation is widespread uh[e] and o after soft consonants. The use of one or another vowel, as a rule, depends on the place of verbal stress and the hardness - softness of the subsequent consonant: under stress before a hard consonant, the vowel o is usually used, in other cases - e [e] (cf., for example: villages, town, But village(no accent) rural(followed by a soft consonant); ice, sleet, subglacial, But black ice(followed by a soft consonant), ice(no accent) ice(there is no stress and a soft consonant follows)). The inconsistency of the pattern formulated above lies, first of all, in the fact that this alternation does not apply to vowels arising from the sound ѣ (cf.: forest, bread, cart etc.), with extremely rare exceptions ( nests- from gnѣ hello, saddles- from Withѣ dla), it does not occur in words of foreign origin (cf.: antenna, newspaper, progress etc.) and in some other cases. On the other hand, such alternation is possible in the absence of the above phonetic conditions, for example, in the position before a soft consonant (cf.: beretik, birch forest and on birch).

In some Slavic languages, under certain phonetic conditions, vowel alternation is observed uh[e] and A(cf., for example, Bulgarian abyss(bread) - of bread(genitive case), Polish las (genitive case) – w liesie (prepositional case), siano (hay), siana (genitive case) – na sienie (prepositional case). In the Bulgarian language, the alternation of these sounds is determined by the nature of the syllable (in an open syllable the sound is usually used uh[e], in closed – A), in Polish - by the hardness or softness of the subsequent consonant (before a hard consonant it is used A, before soft - e). Such alternation is characteristic only of vowels dating back to the ancient ѣ.

In Polish, alternation is allowed for nasal vowels: ts[on] and q[en]. Usually (as a rule) q[on] is used in closed syllables, q[ep] – in open: dqb(oak) – dqby[beby] (oak trees), zqb(tooth) - zqby(teeth), rqka(hand) - rqk(hands). However, it also happens the other way around, for example, in the words: piqc"[p"enc"] (five) – piqtek(washed, washed), Bruder(Brother) - Binder(brothers), Vogel(bird) - Vogel(birds); English goose(goose) - geese(geese), foot(leg) – feet(legs); Lithuanian braidau(wandering) - braidziau(wandered) statau(put, build) – staciau(set, built), jus(You) –jus(you – accusative plural).

So, among grammatical (morphological) alternations, alternations of sounds (phonemes) are distinguished as the only means of expressing grammatical meanings and as an additional, auxiliary means that accompanies other morphemic grammatical means.

In certain cases, not only vowel sounds alternate, but also consonants. Most often, alternation is found in roots, suffixes and prefixes.

Moss - moss, carry - carry, cool - cooler, friend - friends - be friends - at the root of the word;

circle - mug, daughter - daughters, winter - winter, valuable - valuable - in suffixes;

wait - wait, call - convene, rub - rub - in prefixes.

Historical alternations

Vowel sounds
	moss - moss root - root tan - tan freeze - freeze breathe - sigh carry - carry understand - understand - understand sound - ringing
Consonants
[p//pl; m//ml; b//bl; v//vl] [sk//st//sch]	buy - buy, earthly - earth wear - wear carry - drive dry - dry land leads - lead father - fatherland shine - sparkle - shines light - candle - lighting fence - fence - fencing hail - cry - exclamation

Phonetic (positional) alternations

Vowel sounds
[o//i e //b] [a//i e //b] [e//i e//b]	V [O] day - in [Λ ]yes - in [ъ] dyanoy tr [A] vka - tr [Λ] va - tr [ъ]withered n [O] s - n [And uh ] set - n [b] suny P [A] t - p [And uh ] type [b]titenth With [e] m - s [And uh ] mi - s [b] mid-tenth
vowel sounds
voiced - voiceless hard - soft	But [and] and - but [w] mo[ l]- mo [l’]ь

Historical alternations are revealed during word formation and form change.

Phonetic (positional) can be determined by the reduction of vowels and assimilation of consonant sounds.

There are many fluent vowels when changing one-syllable and two-syllable nouns according to cases [o, e, and// -]:

mouth - mouth, ice - ice, stump - stump;

fire - fire, knot - knot, wind - wind, lesson - lesson, nail - nail, hive - hive;

bucket - buckets, window - windows, needle - needles, egg - eggs.

There are also fluent vowels in short adjectives:

short is short, bitter is bitter, funny is funny, long is long, cunning is cunning.

In the roots of different types of verbs, alternations of vowels and consonants also occur:

touch - touch, inspect - inspect, collect - collect, send - send, light - light, understand - understand, squeeze - squeeze.

Alternation of sounds- this is a natural difference in sounds in variants of the same morpheme.

Alternation of stressed vowels. Soft consonants cause the vowel articulation to shift forward and upward. In transcription, this shift in the initial and final phase of the vowel is indicated by dots above the letter: /ch¢ac/, /ma ¢t/.

Between soft consonants there is a shift forward and upward in the central part of the vowel: /h ast/ and /h as/, /mel/ and /m el/ - vowel – E of the front row moves (forward) upward. /pike/ and /pike/.

We see that the alternation of vowels under stress after soft and before soft consonants occurs in their significatively strong position, but they are different perceptually.

Hard consonants before and after /A, O, E, U/ have no effect on the vowel: /jaguar, gift, yes/ - the same sound is everywhere /A/ - the environment does not affect the sound - this is a perceptually strong position for /A,O,E,U/ and weak for /I/; position after soft.

In a weak position, sounds adjacent to a consonant adapt the vowel to their articulation. This can be detected by ear. In the word mass it is pronounced /A/, the position here is strong. In the word meat, it is pronounced /A/ - the sound is extraordinary throughout its sound - it is more advanced. In the word /Ira/ it is pronounced /I/ - this is the main variant of the phoneme /I/, the quality of the sound is not determined by position. In the word /cheese/ - it is pronounced /Y/, and then it is pronounced /I/: /sy-i-i-ra/.

Thus, in the perceptually weak position /A/ is the result of adaptation of /A/ to the preceding soft consonant, and in the same way /І/ is the result of adaptation of /I/ to the preceding hard one.

Alternation of unstressed vowels. Unstressed vowels differ from stressed vowels quantitatively and qualitatively: they are shorter than stressed vowels and are pronounced with less force and a different timbre. In connection with this distinction, stressed vowels are called vowels of full formation, unstressed vowels are called reduced vowels.

There is also a difference between unstressed vowels, which is due to their place in relation to stress and position in the syllable.

Potebnya proposed a formula that conditionally estimates the strength of stressed and unstressed syllables in units of 3,2,1. Strike 3, 1st pre-strike - 2, others - 1. /b isLradak/ - disorder, /per i padgLtofk/.

The strength of an unstressed vowel depends on the following conditions: 1. an open syllable is equal to the 1st pre-stressed one: attack /LtkLvat/, aist/aist/.

The strength of an overstressed final open syllable fluctuates by 1 and 2 units: cap / capkL / \ reduced vowels of the 1st degree (2 units of stress) and a vowel of the 2nd degree, (1 unit) - b and L.

Qualitative differences between stressed and unstressed vowels are due to the fact that unstressed vowels are articulated less energetically than stressed ones. The body of the tongue occupies a position close to neutral. Unstressed /И/ /ы/ are vowels of the upper rise: the tongue does not reach the upper position: /vitrinj/, /sy ry/.

When pronouncing the vowel A in the 1st pre-stressed syllable, the tongue does not reach the extreme lower position, its more accurate representation is L: /trLva/, in the 2nd pre-stressed syllable the sound A corresponds to /Ъ/ - the tongue occupies the middle position: /нъпLдат/ .

In certain cases, not only vowel sounds alternate, but also consonants. Most often, alternation is found in roots, suffixes and prefixes.

Moss - moss, carry - carry, cool - cooler, friend - friends - be friends - at the root of the word;

circle - mug, daughter - daughters, winter - winter, valuable - valuable - in suffixes;

wait - wait, call - convene, rub - rub - in prefixes.

Historical alternations

Vowel sounds
	moss - moss root - root tan - tan freeze - freeze breathe - sigh carry - carry understand - understand - understand sound - ringing
Consonants
[p//pl; m//ml; b//bl; v//vl] [sk//st//sch]	buy - buy, earthly - earth wear - wear carry - drive dry - dry land leads - lead father - fatherland shine - sparkle - shines light - candle - lighting fence - fence - fencing hail - cry - exclamation

Phonetic (positional) alternations

Vowel sounds
[o//i e //b] [a//i e //b] [e//i e//b]	V [O] day - in [Λ ]yes - in [ъ] dyanoy tr [A] vka - tr [Λ] va - tr [ъ]withered n [O] s - n [And uh ] set - n [b] suny P [A] t - p [And uh ] type [b]titenth With [e] m - s [And uh ] mi - s [b] mid-tenth
vowel sounds
voiced - voiceless hard - soft	But [and] and - but [w] mo[ l]- mo [l’]ь