Russian / j /

James O. St. Clair-Sobell has touched on many interesting points in his “Notes on Spelling Pronunciation with Special Reference to Modern Standard Russian”, Canadian Slavonic Papers I (1956) : 66-75. The purpose of the present brief note is simply to rectify, as I think, what must be an analytical oversight in his discussion (70-71) of intervocalic / j /. St. Clair-Sobell cites the statements of Isačenko and Shaxmatov to the effect that intervocalic / j / ‘lapses’ in certain environments. He continues : ‘But the “presence” of the intervocalic j is indicated by the quality of the preceding vowel and also by the quality of the following unstressed vowel.’ He then goes on to say (71) that many phoneticians and orthoëpists seem to have missed this dropping of the / j / , and that ‘in affected, that is, in spelling pronunciation the j is heard or it is imagined that the j is heard.’