Cases

[nanki--poo.livejournal.com]

Could I ask someone to explain the cases used in this sentence please:

Я не очень люблю писателей двадцатого века
(I really don't like writers from the twentieth century)

From my poor student knowledge, писателей and века are both genitive? But I don't think thats right?

thanks.

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

That's perfectly fine. I don't see any problems in this sentence. (However, if you string more than three genitives in a row and all participating words end in -ение, that may be considered a bad case of bureaucratese).

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

And the translation of this sentence is rather "I don't like writers from the twentieth century much."

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Я(nominative -- pronouns are declined in Russian) не очень люблю писателей(here is accusative, NOT genitive) двадцатого(genitive -- adjectives are also declined) века(here is genitive).
Seems that you made the same common error of mixing together accusative and genitive cases, which are similar for animate objects. That is, "writers" in accusative would be same as in genitive -- "писателей".
Another point is that pronouns and adjectives are also declined in Russian, and adjective should agree with respected noun -- as you can see here, both "двадцатого" and "века" are in the same genitive case.

[nanki--poo.livejournal.com]

ah ok got it! I forgot about the animate masculine rule, I was wondering why that would become genitive. thanks all!

[hellga.livejournal.com]

Only what you have written translates to "I don't really like twentieth century writers all that much", to get "I really don't like" you need to change the order to "Я очень не люблю писателей двадцатого века"

[geish-a.livejournal.com]

писателей can be both genitive and accusative (depending on the dialect), but because it's animate the form is the same.

[kragoth.livejournal.com]

I want to make sure of this. Masculine nouns that end in a -ь take on -ей in the plural genitive, right?

[geish-a.livejournal.com]

Yes (as well as those ending in hushers).
But for animate masculine nouns the accusative and the genitive are the same.

[oranta.livejournal.com]

The only right argument. Писателей is Accusative.

[kragoth.livejournal.com]

I knew the latter. :-)

I never took classes in Russian, so I'm self-taught. Just a short while ago I got a really good understanding of the soft-signs...I used to just do hard endings.

[anonymousette.livejournal.com]

I think I know what book you took this from... they buy Lermontov's letters afterwards? :P

[geish-a.livejournal.com]

good luck with your studies :)

[katiroma.livejournal.com]

By the way, if it can be of any help: a noun (or a pronoun) in accusative case is related to a transitive verb. "I like [trans. verb] writers" - Я люблю [переходный глагол] писателей.

[nanki--poo.livejournal.com]

Good 'ol Gleb and Svetlana :) I've been so tempted to jump ahead and see if they hook up, but I've been good and resisted. So no spoliers please!

[kragoth.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-)

[cheryltheperil.livejournal.com]

It might be worth pointing out that in this case, писателей really could be in genitive case because it is a negative statement. It is quite common for Russians to use gen. in such instances, for example, я понимаю русскнй язык can become Я не понимаю русского языка in a negative context. Although I think it would still be correct to use accusative if you don't want to bother with the genitive.

However, it doesn't matter much for писателей because the genitive and animate accusative endings are indentical.

I think there are more precise rules about how to choose between genitive or accusative in negative statements, but I cannot remember them off hand.

Btw, I am new to this board, so I just wanted to say 'hi'. I'm glad to find people who are as crazy about Russian language as me :)

[dare-r.livejournal.com]

"It might be worth pointing out that in this case, писателей really could be in genitive case because it is a negative statement. It is quite common for Russians to use gen. in such instances, for example, я понимаю русскнй язык can become Я не понимаю русского языка in a negative context. Although I think it would still be correct to use accusative if you don't want to bother with the genitive."

You're right. In SPOKEN language many Russians do use genetive instead of accusative. However, I used to think that, for instance, it's aslways better to learn correct English forms before speaking Cockney :)))
I mean that "it would still be correct to use accusative if you don't want to bother with the genitive." would sound better like this: "It might still be correct to use genetive if you don't want to bother with the accusative." :))

[cheryltheperil.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's just spoken Russian, I've been looking through my book of Advanced Russian Grammar and it has a whole set of rules and guidelines - including examples from the press and official documents - that show in which situations it is better to use genitive in a negative context, and when it is better to use accusative.

I could give a summary of the guidelines from the book if anyone is interested, although to be honest I find it difficult to absorb information when it's so dry - it's better to just get a feel for stuff like this by reading and listening as much as you can.

[dare-r.livejournal.com]

Right you are, sometimes genetive and accusative are both possible and even have a bit different meaning but what I meant, answering your post, was this sentence: Я не понимаю русского языка (I don't understand Russian). In this case genetive is clearly a spoken form. I thought (it looked like) your statements "<...>STILL be correct <...> if you don't want to bother with genetive" refer to this particular sentence, not to all variations.
Cleared up. ) Okey dokey then

[cheryltheperil.livejournal.com]

Oh I see... yes, fair point :)