Russian Language Stack Exchange
Russian Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [падежи]

Covers questions about different cases. Case is a morphological category of nouns and adjectives that signals their relation to other words in a sentence.

Covers questions about different cases. Case is a morphological category of nouns and adjectives that signals their relation to other words in a sentence.

For example, words "одна машина" in "Одна машина остановилась перед другой машиной" are in nominative case and signal that "одна машина" is the subject of "остановилась"; "другой машиной" is in instrumental case and signals that this word is in certain relation to preposition "перед". Both "машина" and "машиной" are forms of the same word (same entry in a dictionary).

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Russian cases: A few examples, I'm really confused

I'm doing the Pimsleur Russian audio course and I've come across some sentences that I'm not sure about. Example 1: I have money = у меня́ есть де́ньги. So far, so good. "At my place, there is money." It seems intuitive that money is in the…
user1622
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"нет грамм" vs. "нет граммов": a new case or two different words with separate paradigms?

The question comes from the discussion here and is a little bit geeky =) It was suggested that there may be a new case in Russian: Счетный (Numerative). As an instance of this case, Anixx gave the following example: на этой шкале нет граммов…
Olga
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Why do some nouns take the genitive case instead of the accusative?

I recently came upon the sentence: Мы хотим мира. We want peace. The first thing that went through my head was, This must be one of those animate masculine nouns that declines for the accusative case. Wanting to be sure, I decided to look it up on…
Lisa Beck
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What old rare case or rule is used in the sentence "выдвигаться в президенты"?

I've asked a friend of mine, which is Russian, why they were saying on the news выдвигаться в президенты instead of выдвигаться в президентов, and he told me it is an exception, of an old case that he couldn't remember at the occasion. Since then,…
ClaudioDeSouza
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Accusative vs Dative case

According to some resources I have you use the Dative case after a lot of verbs that mean an action pointed towards a person, like the "to gift" verb. For example: Виктор мешает брату. "брат" is in Dative case. But at the same time I know that you…
mathgenius
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Choice of case when more than one is allowed

Certain words govern more than one case even when the meaning is identical in both cases. For example, простить governs both the genitive and dative cases and «прости меня» and «прости мне» have the same meaning. I have a few questions regarding…
Valiowk
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What is the rationale for using Nominative Plural following the preposition "в" in "годиться в + noun"?

Не знаю, гожусь ли я в напарники, но попробовать можно. I've never come across another instance where a noun following the preposition "в" takes any other case than Prepositional or Accusative. Not to mention that the very idea of using Nominative…
Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
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Why use the instrumental "чем-то" instead of "что-то" in: "Ты чем-то похож на него"?

Ты чем-то похож на него. vs: Ты что-то похож на него. I understand that if the adjective "похожий" were not in the shortened form, it would take the instrumental case here. But I wonder if the adverb "что-то" with the meaning of…
Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
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Is there ever a time when one uses по́ле to refer to the floor?

I recently wrote the following sentence as a practice exercise: We can sleep on the floor. Мы можем спать на по́ле. After writing it, I learned that "по́ле" should be "полу́" and that "полу́" is in the locative case. I had already done some reading…
Lisa Beck
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Can noun "миля" have Gen. Pl. form "милей"?

In the "Техника – молодежи" magazine, №5 1977, there is a sci-fi story translated from English, "A Task for Emmy", it is about a super-computer called "Эмми". The story has a phrase that puzzled me, "тысячи милей ее проводов". All my dictionaries…
Yellow Sky
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Which case to use with "выглядеть"

In principle we can use: Он выглядит как дурак; дураком or Он выглядит хорошо, хорошим, как хороший X Which structure is best, or how do they differ in meaning? I also read this in Толковый словарь Ушакова: ВЫ́ГЛЯДЕТЬ2, всё более входящий в…
VCH250
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Case usage with хмель, похмелье?

I've come across these two set expressions, but I don't understand the cases that are used here. во хмелю — why is the preposition "в" being used with the ending "ю"—is this a partitive of some kind ? с похмелья — is this the genitive case? What…
VCH250
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What is the difference between ‘Что нового?’, ‘Что новое?’ and ‘Чего нового?’

I have seen both the constructions ‘Что нового?’ and ‘Что новое?’. I believe that both mean ‘What is new?’, but I cannot tell whether they are interchangable. (Edit: cha mentions ‘Чего нового?’ below; any information on this construction in addition…
Valiowk
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What rule governs the grammatical cases in these examples?

I don't understand why the sentences Mы достигли своей цели and Пушка пробивала лобовую броню are correct. Why not Мы достигли свою цель? What's the rule for the grammatical cases used here? Why are they different? And which is correct: Пушка не…
leech10
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Which case is used for the word "домой"

In the following sentence: Мы возвращаемся домой. I am expecting accusative, so I'm confused.
Lawrence DeSouza
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