Talk:быть

Conjugational issues

@Benwing2 The current conjugation table is a joke. Есть should be shown as the main form for all numbers and persons. It has been the only present tense form of быть for many centuries. Быть is not used as a copula in Russian, but it occurs in existential and possessive expressions and is completely independent of the number and person of the subject. Guldrelokk (talk) 09:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I disagree about the complete removal. The unused forms are grammatically correct, proper labelling is sufficient. You can add «есть» but it needs labelling as well. Just a special verb. It’s somewhat similar to the Arabic كان in the present tense.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:28, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I didn’t propose to remove the CS present forms, although it could be argued that есмы́ etc. is not felt as grammatical by any Russian speaker in existence. Есть is the only unmarked form, it appears in possessive and existential expressions у … есть <subject>, <subject> есть, and it has been so for many hundreds of years, I only want to show this in the table. Guldrelokk (talk) 09:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I’m okay if you use it in the table. «У ... есть» is one of the 3rd person singular usages, anyway. «Есть» must be labelled in other forms, since it’s originally 3rd person sg but used by others. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:53, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

У … есть is used with both singular and plural subjects, and the rarity of non-3rd person is purely pragmatic – it is still the only possibility, cf. у меня есть вы. The table is not specified in the article, быть is handled by the module. Guldrelokk (talk) 10:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Guldrelokk: I don't think I can add to the current module. I used to edit it but I no longer understand how it works, it's more complex, we need User:Benwing2 to help us with that, please. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:57, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Guldrelokk, Atitarev Sorry, what did you guys agree to exactly? What changes do you want to the module? It's not clear to me from reading the text above. Benwing2 (talk) 13:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2: I think we agreed to add есть (jestʹ) to each present tense form as the first form (followed by comma and the other archaic form) with a superscript ² to refer to usage notes. @Guldrelokk, correct me if it's not what you had in mind. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:28, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Guldrelokk: Guldrelokk has modified the module but it's imperfect, we need to mark "есть" as irregular and a special usage (superscript ²), at the very least. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:46, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Guldrelokk: Thanks, Guldrelokk, it's looking good. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

• Anyway, the current table is a bit silly. It is just confusing to repeat есть as though it were all six different forms; much clearer to give the table of the historical forms (for the benefit at least of people like me who did Latin!) clearly labelled as such. The explanation of есть in its current person/number independent status is quite clear already.

Pronunciation

If I am not wrong, the [ɨ] doesn't reflects the actual pronunciation of ы when preceded by labial consonants.--Manfariel (talk) 12:13, 22 July 2020 (UTC)