Russian/Grammar/Noun cases
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
Russian has six cases. Cases are suffixes (word endings) that tell you the context of word. English has almost no cases. However, sometimes we make up cases in English. For example, my friend refers to her dog as a "doggie," his paws as "pawsies," his ears as "earsies," his bed as his "beddie," etc. So when she says, "Those earsies are filthy!" I know that she means the dog's ears, not mine.
Contents |
[edit] Nominative case nouns
The nominative case is used for a sentence's subject. In "Bob eats lunch," Bob is the subject. This is the case you find in dictionaries.
[edit] Accusative case nouns
The accusative case is used for a sentence's direct object. In "Bob eats lunch," "lunch" is the direct object. In English we use word order to indicate subject and object (subject is first, object last). Thus in English, "Bob eats lunch" and "Lunch eats Bob" have different meanings. But in Russian, a suffix indicates whether a word is the subject or object. If English indicated the direct object by adding "oo," then we could say "Bob eats lunchoo" or "Lunchoo eats Bob" and either way it would clear that Bob was doing the eating.
Masculine, neuter, and plural follow the same pattern. For inanimate objects, accusative case is the same as nominative case. For animate objects, accusative case is the same as genitive case. (There are no neuter animate objects.)
Feminine accusative nouns change their а or я ending to у or ю, respectively. E.g., "car" is машина (pronounced "masheena") in nominative case, and машину (pronounced "masheenoo")in the accusative case.
For example, picture a mother with a little boy named Бобчик (Bobchik). We would say Мама любит Бобчика ("Mama loves Bobchik," genitive case) and Бобчик любит маму ("Bobchik loves Mama," accustaive case).
[edit] Accusative case plural nouns
[edit] Prepositional case nouns
The prepositional case indicates that a sentence's object is a location. In general, you add е (prounced "yeh") to end of a noun. E.g., "I live in Michigan" becomes "I live in Michiganyeh." If the word ends in й, а, or я, replace that letter with u or yu. E.g., "She is going to Minnesota" becomes "She is going to Minnesotu."
There are two exceptions to the е ending. Never write ие, instead write ии (Russians pronounce both, like "ee-ee"). The other exception is foreign nouns ending in о, и, or у. These look the same as the nominative case. E.g., Colorado, Kentucky, and Peru don't change.
Nouns in the prepositional case are always preceded by "in" or "about." Each word comes in two versions. If "in" is an activity, or a place where an activity is done (for example, the ballet) use на (pronounced "na"). For places unrelated to activities, use в (pronounced "veh" or pronounced with the next word if it starts with a vowel, e.g., "in Atlanta" would be "vatlanta").
"About" is о, or, if the following word starts with a vowel, об.
[edit] Куда vs. где
Куда asks "where are [you/he/she/etc.] going?" куда asks about moving objects. It's pronounced "kooda," which sounds like a form of head lice.
Где asks "where are [you/he/she/etc.]?" где asks about static objects. It's pronounced "gde," like Australians saying "G'day!"
Statements that could answer the question куда are in the accusative case. E.g., "We're driving to St. Petersburg, Florida" would be in the accusative case, if you said it in Russian.
Statements that could answer the question где are in the prepositional case. E.g., "We live in Moscow, Idaho" would be in the prepositional case.
This is easy to remember because the vowels in Куда are у and а—nouns that end in а (feminine nouns) change to у in the accusative case. The vowel in где is е, the letter you add to end nouns in the prepositional case.
[edit] Prepositional case plural
There is no plural case for nouns in the prepositional case. E.g., you can only live in one Michigan. {Bullshit, some place names *are* plural - like "Hawaii". My zhivem na Gavayah!
[edit] Genitive case nouns
The genitive case is used with:
- Negation.
- Possession.
- Numbers. E.g., "I have six chairs" is plural in English but not plural in Russian!
- Part of something, or "some," or "any."
- "Of," e.g., the house of the teacher ("teacher" is genitive).
Masculine and neuter nouns form the genitive case the same way: add а at the end. E.g., стол (table) becomes стола. The exceptions are masculine words ending in й or ь add я. if the word ends in a vowel, drop the vowel then add a.
Feminine nouns form the genitive case by dropping the а and add ы. E.g., лампа (lamp) becomes лампы. The exceptions are if the word ends in я or ь, or for the 7-letter spelling rule, add и.
[edit] Genitive case plural nouns
Plural nouns form the genitive case by dropping the vowel at the end. Thus feminine nouns drop the а and neuter nouns drop the о. Masculine nouns stay as they are (ending in a consonant). "Soft ending" feminine words change the я to ь (which sounds like you dropped the vowel ending).
[edit] Dative case nouns
[edit] Instrumental case nouns
Not a book title page. Please remove {{alphabetical}} from this page.
