Plurals

[thedevilishone.livejournal.com]

What is the difference between:

руками ; руки

глазами ; глаза

крылья ; крыльями

Both are plural, but when do you know to use them, also, are there other forms of plurals?

Comments

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

different cases maybe? I'm probably wrong here, but I think the ones that end in ee are the nominative plurals and the ones ending in mee are instumental plural? Someone please correct me...

yes, instrumental plural

[sovok.livejournal.com]

by hands, hands
by eyes, eyes
wings, by wings

Re: yes, instrumental plural

[thedevilishone.livejournal.com]

how exactly would you conjugate plurals in the cases???

are these examples good enough?

[sovok.livejournal.com]

Я делаю это руками - I make it by hands
Я использую руки - I use hands

Re: are these examples good enough?

[thedevilishone.livejournal.com]

I had made this to help me with my instrumental case a little bit ago...

Instrumental Case ; Творительный падеж
+ "that with which something is done"
+ by/with
+ after "с" (with)
+ masculine nouns change
- add "ом" to final constonant
- change final "й" to "ем"
+ feminine nouns change
- "а" to "ой"
- "я" to "ей"
+ neuter nouns change
- "о" to "ом"
- "е" to "ем"
- "мя" to "менем"

Is there anything with that information, or is anything missing?

Re: are these examples good enough?

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

well you're missing all the stuff about plural, which would have answered your question lol.

Re: are these examples good enough?

[thedevilishone.livejournal.com]

haha where is a good site to learn about makes nouns plural in the cases

i think it's basically right

[sovok.livejournal.com]

if there are some exceptions they are very rare
"c" of course corresponds to "with"
no preposition is equivalent to "by"
Я делаю что-то с руками - I do smth with my hands (affect my hands)
Я делаю что-то руками - I do smth by my hands (affect smth else using my hands)
Although for some transitive verbs they can mix up - Я ем с руками = Я ем руками = I eat by my hands = I eat with my hands - but I think for native English speakers this shouldn't be a problem, it comes naturally.

[sovok.livejournal.com]

yeah, right, but you should find the same rule for plurals in the same sourse - they cannot skip it!

Re: yes, instrumental plural

[netske.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can imagine how difficult it is to manage cases in Russian for those not native speakers, foreigners :).
There are 6 cases.
For 'hands' we have:

руки when hands "act by their own" : His hands seemed trembling. - Его руки, казалось, дрожали.

рук when you answer to question "What you feel lack of?" (ugly example, but anyway) - ...

рукам when you answer to question "What are you obey to?" - ...

руки (yes, like in first entry!) .... what are you going to get warm first? - ...

руками ... What are you acting with?

руках ... What are you talking about? - ...

Here prepositions are in bold, because they play important role in determining which case is that. Actually, this is the general rule for the cases in Russian language.

[kart.livejournal.com]

The difference is the grammatical case. In that case, the first example of each word you gave was instrumental. The second word in each pair was nominative.

Example: Подняться с руками.

[kart.livejournal.com]

For native English speakers trying to understand grammatical cases.....

Modern English does have a slight case system that was used much more heavily in Old English. Since we don't have a whole lot of cases, most English teachers who teach native speakers in schools don't bother to identify the grammar rules as "cases" per se, yet that is exactly what they are. In the evolution from Old English to modern, most of the cases were simplified and fused. English now has only three and the rules only apply to pronouns (and nouns, in one situation). English has: Subjective/Nominative, Objective/Accusative, Possessive/Genitive.

"She has a sandwich." - subj/nom
"We gave the sandwich to her." - obj/acc
"The sandwich is hers." - poss/gen

"They live next door." - subj/nom
"Have you seen them?" obj/acc
"The house across the street is theirs." poss/gen

A tiny figment of the possessive/genitive case still exists for nouns in Modern English - it is the apostrophe-S ending:

"The dog chewed a bone." - subj/nom
"Give the dog a bone." - obj/acc
"That is the dog's bone." - poss/gen

Re: yes, instrumental plural

[logodaedaly.livejournal.com]

Others have answered your question below, but I should point out, one does not conjugate nouns, one declines them. Conjugation is for verbs only.

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

The others have given you good answers, but to clarify further, each case has its own singular and plural which are formed by specific rules. For example, you don't only have руки and руками but also рук, руках, and so forth.

A while back I posted a declension reference table (http://www.livejournal.com/community/learn_russian/12481.html), so you can look at that (or any of the many similar tables on learning Russian sites) to see the forms of words - it probably won't help you learn the rules at first; mine is mainly helpful to check forms once you know the rules. But it will show you various plural endings.

Interesting tangential tidbit: Some languages have not only a singlar and plural, but a dual form which means specifically two of something - older forms of Russian/Slavonic had this, and other languages do today.

[kart.livejournal.com]

Yes. Old Slavonic and Old English both have a dual number. It is a common feature in many languages, though native speakers will almost always understand you if you use the simple plural instead.

It is not necessary to learn dual cases for Modern Russian or English, though ;-)

P.S. Another linguistic tidbit - some languages make a distinction between inclusive and exclusive plural pronouns. For instance, in Papua New Guinean creole (aka Tok Pisin) has singular, dual, triple and plural pronouns, as well as inclusive/exclusive plural pronouns.

Fred i bin singautim yumi long pati. = Fred invited us (including you) to the party.

Fred i bin singautim mipela long pati. = Fred invited us (but not including you) to the party.

One could even say,
Fred i bin singautim yumitripela long pati. = Fred invited all 3 of us (including 2 persons being addressed) to the party. ;-)

More info for the curious (http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/tokpisin.htm)

Re: yes, instrumental plural

[oncelosthorizon.livejournal.com]

Oh, the beauty of learning French ;P