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In the phrase "У меня (есть)", I am the one doing the having, so surely I should be in the nominative, but instead we use "меня", which is accusative (or something else?).

I suspect this is because the literal meaning of "У меня есть кот" is something more like "There is a cat with me". Is this accurate? If so, what exactly does the preposition У mean here, and why is есть not conjugated?

Jack M
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    Note that prepositions usually govern only one or two cases (rarely some popular preposition have a thirs for some specific use). So whatever the meaning, "у" would use Genitive. Why "у"+"есть" — that's a different question. "Having" is not really an action done by anyone (and if you "have an older brother", you literally have not done anything to have him). That's why some languages prefer to express possession with "there is" construction. Such as Russian or Japanese. – Shady_arc Nov 09 '14 at 15:54
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    Do you say "At I there is a cat" or "By I there is a cat"? – Anixx Nov 09 '14 at 10:08
  • The verb "есть" is conjugated. It is the third person singular form of "быть" (to be). – David42 Dec 19 '16 at 17:25

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The literal meaning is "By me there is a cat". The preposition у indicates something nearby, e.g., у окна = by the window. Every preposition requires the accompanying noun to have a definite case, and it just happens that nouns following у must be in the genitive case. Don't try to reason out "why" you need the genitive after у. As von Neumann would say, don't try to understand it; just get used to it. So we use меня and окна after у since they are the genitive form of я and окно.

There is no need to change the form of есть in this construction since it means "there is" and that's exactly what you're saying.

The construction у + genitive есть may seem like a complicated way to express possession if you compare it to English, but you shouldn't expect different languages to convey the same idea in the same way. There are other means of conveying possession in Russian with a grammatical construction that is closer to the English form (e.g., я имею право... = I have the/a right...), but the у + gen. construction is the standard idiomatic method in ordinary circumstances. The usage of я имею is rare in everyday speech. See the question at The usage of иметь.

Community
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KCd
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  • Could you explain why есть is unconjugated? Is it ever conjugated in Russian? – Jack M Nov 09 '14 at 11:36
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    @JackM Its obsolete conjugation is я есмь, ты еси, он *есть,мы есмы, вы есте, они суть*. As you can see, only 3rd person singular is preserved in modern Russian, due to the copula's relatively limited use. I believe, far more native speakers of English know "thou art" than there are native speakers of Russian who know the old conjugation for "to be"-verb (which has not been in use for several centuries already). – Shady_arc Nov 09 '14 at 15:57
  • That is, you can forget it if you are not interested in Old East Slavic (a.k.a. Old/Ancient Russian). – Shady_arc Nov 09 '14 at 16:05
  • @Shady_arc and actually 3rd person singular is actually what one would want here anyway. – Anixx Nov 09 '14 at 16:16
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    @Anixx but we use 3rd person singular even when theoretically one would want plural: no one says "У меня суть тетради". Only "У меня есть тетради". However, in academic writing some people may use "суть" in the meaning "A is B" to sound deep and wise (not sure if they do). And just like "есть", this 3rd person plural is then used both in singular and plural. – Shady_arc Nov 09 '14 at 17:15
  • In which cases can the "есть" be dropped -if at all- in the construction "у меня ..."? – Raskolnikov Nov 09 '14 at 21:40
  • @Raskolnikov: That's a good question, and a native speaker should answer it (and maybe it should be its own question). All I'll say is that in my Russian classes the instructor often started by asking all of us Какие у вас вопросы and I once asked why she didn't say Какие у вас есть вопросы? She said it was because she expects we definitely have questions. I'm not sure how that generalizes to other situations. – KCd Nov 09 '14 at 22:50
  • @Raskolnikov Basically, "есть", being a *to be-form explicitly states existence and draws attention to it. Which is not OK if existence is obvious or not the point. If you introduce yourself "having" something, it is OK. But, as a rule of thumb, drop "есть" if you have an adjective as the main point — I mean, if rephrasing "I have a big house" to "My house is big" is justified. Never use "есть" when saying you are ill ("У меня насморк") or talking about body parts ("У меня длинные волосы"). That is, unless you have some extra body parts that are not expected. – Shady_arc Nov 10 '14 at 00:02
  • Actually, "у меня" with adjectives offers you something between "I have a good X" and "my X is good", i.e. if it is understood that not everyone has X, then the meaning of "having" is included. So omitting "есть" when you have some "description" of an object is a good strategy. Be aware that Russian, obviously, has combinations like "старший брат", "письменный стол" — here the adjective is not optional ("older brother" is a type of relative, not a brother with a quality of older-ness), so you can use or not use "есть" as usual. – Shady_arc Nov 10 '14 at 00:08
  • Finally, «у меня» can be used to begin a sentence about something that is yours: «У меня мама заболела» (My mother is ill), «У меня кот пушистее любого свитера»(My cat is fluffier than any jumper), «У меня давно уже большой просторный дом за городом» (I have already had a large, spacious house in the country for a long time). Obviously, no need for «есть» in this case. – Shady_arc Nov 10 '14 at 00:14
  • Thank you for the clarification and the quite intuitive rule of thumb. – Raskolnikov Nov 11 '14 at 08:18
  • The genetive here is similar to English "at ours", "at theirs". – Anixx May 05 '21 at 17:14
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У меня есть кот literraly means I have a cat. So if you looks for seamless of sense and forms the phrast "The cat belongs to me" is closer to understand why "меня" but not "я".

Of course there is the direct translation Я имею кота, but it is not nice and can suppose some obscene connotation.

user4591
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Regarding this last bit:

why is есть not conjugated?

It's the verb быть (to be) in 3rd person singular. The reason it's not conjugated is that other forms have been dropped in recent 500 years. They were:

  • я есьм
  • ты еси
  • он есть - still used
  • мы есьмо
  • вы есте
  • они суть - very rarely but still used mostly in written, by educated people

(If you look at other Indo-European languages, Italian has forms of "essere" (to be) very similar.)

Nowadays, являться is used where "to be" is explicitly needed, and surprisingly идти is used similarly to "there is" in English (у нас машины идут в базовой комплектации - there are cars of base options in our shop).

  • I think you mean "Я есмь" and "Мы есмы". See https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BC%D1%8B – David42 Aug 29 '17 at 14:18
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I think, it's same as "I am" and not "I is" in english.

Amegar
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