Russian Location Prepositions (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Russian Location Prepositions
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

Keilan
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5087 days ago
125 posts - 241 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: German

Message 1 of 5

07 August 2013 at 5:54am | IP Logged

Hey all,

I'm trying to learn which case all the Russian prepositions take and using this article, I am finding that several prepositions (за 'behind' and под 'under') can take either the accusative or the instrumental case. Can someone explain how to tell which case to use for these prepositions?

Additionally, maybe there is no answer for this and it's just something to memorize, but is there a reason why над 'on top of' and перед 'in front of' do not have the same accusative/instrumental distinction?

Thanks!
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 2 of 5

07 August 2013 at 8:23am | IP Logged

They are used with instr when they mean location, but with the acc when they mean
direction. За has many other meanings. There is no answer to your second question.
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Cabaire
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5600 days ago
725 posts - 1352 votes

Message 3 of 5

07 August 2013 at 10:11am | IP Logged

German has a lot more of these prepositions, which distinguish place and direction by different cases (Dative/Accusative):
an
auf
hinter
in
neben
über
unter
vor
zwischen

Latin has only three (Ablative/Accusative):
in
sub
super

Ancient Greek has more (Genitive,Dative/Accusative):
ἀμφί
περί
διά
κατα
μετά
ὑπέρ
ἐπἰ
παρά
πρόσ
ὑπό

Russian has also (Prepositive/Accusative)
в
на

Therefore I think this differenciation is a very old one, because it appears in different branches of Indo-European. And you see it is not fixed which prepositions are included and which not (or have lost it?).

Edited by Cabaire on 07 August 2013 at 10:13am
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Keilan
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5087 days ago
125 posts - 241 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: German

Message 4 of 5

07 August 2013 at 12:06pm | IP Logged

Thanks Марк, and thanks Cabaire, the parallel with German is very useful, I understand now.
1 person has voted this message useful

Dragon27
Diglot
Groupie
Russian Federation
Joined 4242 days ago
41 posts - 71 votes

Speaks: Russian*, English

Message 5 of 5

07 August 2013 at 10:06pm | IP Logged

Keilan, if you've read the whole article, you would have found an answer to you first question:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian/Prepositions#Prepositio ns_with_2_cases

Quote:

Prepositions with 2 cases
Like in German, some prepositions can have 2 cases. The accusative (again, like in German) and the genitive cases
are used to express movement: accusative pertains to destination, while genitive indicates the source of
movement. The instrumental and the Prepositional are used to express staticness.
Accusative and Prepositional
в or во - in, inside of
на - on, on top of
Accusative and instrumental
за - behind, for
под - under

And there are prepositions with 3 cases too.

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