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Russian: Normative vs Accusative case | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5097 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 1 of 5 04 October 2010 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I seem to have difficulty grasping how to analyse some sentences in Russian. For what I understand, we use Normative case when we just give more information about the subject. It's like a complement. The Accusative case is used: 1- when we specify a destination (i go to the market). Not to confond with the position of a object, the latter one is in the prepositional. 2- The subject is doing somethings (there is an action) on the object (a word or group of words that complement the subject). Thank PS:I will try to print out a Russian keyboard key sheet because right now, I can't really give exemple in Russian as it will take hours to right 4-5 sentences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5230 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 2 of 5 04 October 2010 at 9:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The first case is called nominative, because it comes from the Latin "casus nominativus" (case for names). The fourth case, accusative, is used for direct objects. Since your native language is French, you must know the difference between direct and indirect objects anyway, otherwise you cannot write it correctly. If you're dealing with an indirect object you use the third case, dative. Think of object pronouns in French: lui is for indirect objects, le and la are for direct objects.
Cases are triggered by prepositions or verbs, which is called government. (That is at least true for the dative and accusative cases we're dealing with here.) You need to learn which cases are required by every preposition and every verb. Some Russian prepositions can be followed by different cases, and they change their meaning that way. The preposition в can be followed by the prepositional to indicate places or by the accusative to indicate directions. The preposition с can be followed by instrumental to indicate with what something is done or by the genitive to indicate from where. As for the government of verbs, there are no reliable rules in any language. You just need to learn it by heart. If you have no clue and no chance to look it up, use the accusative, because that way you will get it right most often. Dictionaries usually show which case(s) a verb requires. Cases can look like a can of worms, but there are fixed rules and you only need to learn them. Aspects of verbs are a lot harder to grasp, because there the rules are comparatively vague. Edited by OlafP on 04 October 2010 at 10:07am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5097 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 3 of 5 05 October 2010 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I understand the general idea.
We use the accusatif 1-if there is a preposition that change the meaning (ex: Ha, B) 2-if the group of word is a direct object of the verb. For exemple: Я очень люблю смотреть фильмы. фильмы = Accusatif plurial. Direct object of the verb люблю. Still, a particular word, who's function is a verb, ectb (there is (il y a)) give me trouble. Each times I have encountered that verb, the words or groups words following is put into Nominative instead of Accusative (even if the question who/what seem to find a direct object). EX: Но у нас есть дискотека. Hac = genetif because of y дискотека = nominative because ? My hypothesis about that particular verb is that the object isn't definite but indefinite. For exemple, instead of the phone (that particular one (definite)), the use of ectb imnplicate a phone (unspecific). In French we would use Le téléphone vs un téléphone (article dfini vs indéfini). Those my explanation seem right ? Thank you 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gdoyle1990 Groupie United States Joined 5415 days ago 52 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Serbian, Estonian | Message 4 of 5 05 October 2010 at 6:07am | IP Logged | ||
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The reason that nouns are in the nominative case after "У кого-то есть" is because this phrase translates to "By someone there is". This construction requires the nominative because the what comes after "есть" is actually the subject of the sentence.
Example: У меня "есть" кошка. I have a cat (Literally: There is a cat by me) *Есть is optional, but I tend to include it.* "Но у нас есть дискотека." Just as in my example, "дискотека" is in the nominative because it is the subject of the sentence in Russian. Russian does have a verb which means "to have", *Иметь*, but it is usually reserved for abstract ideas or emotions. The "By someone there is" construction is more commonly used for corporeal nouns. If the "By someone there is" phrase were to be negated (e.g., У кого-то нет.) then the word following "нет" would be in the genitive case, but the reasons for that are strange and confusing. Good Luck 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6714 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 5 05 October 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Click Here for Answers Edited by translator2 on 05 October 2010 at 6:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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