(no subject)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

There is a Russian grammar rule that I have trouble remembering because it seems particularly illogical. Please discuss the difference when using numbers with masculine adjective-noun combinations and feminine adjective-noun combinations. For example...

У меня два хороших друга.

У меня две хорошие газеты.

(note that in the second example, despite the use of the number 2, the "good newspapers" remains in nominative case, whereas in the first it is put in genitive because of the number). Spasibo

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. Also please note that the numeral два is in a sense an exception - the way it directs other words can be tricky. If you take three or more, there would not be any visible difference between the two cases:
У меня есть три хороших друга (пять хороших друзей)
У меня есть три хороших газеты (пять хороших газет)

But in any case it would be very wrong to say that "друзья here is in genitive and газеты is in nominative". This is not so. The constructions are similar.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

That's because dual number has different declension paradigm, compared with plural, and here we just have it. Dual number generally merged with plural in modern language, and their most forms are identical, but there are still cases where it rears its head. ^_^

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of conflicting responses here, so I'm hoping to clarify things.

Oryx and Crake, in response to your post above, I've seen examples in Russian textbooks that involved all of the "genitive singular numerals" (2,3,4) for feminine adjective-noun combinations using what appears to be nominative plural, while with masculine adjective-noun combinations it used genitive plural adjective endings and genitive singular noun endings. This is consistent with Moooose's comment below from his textbook. For example,

У меня есть четыре хорошие книги

but

У меня есть четыре хороших друга

Perhaps this is a flexible rule as some people seem to be suggesting. Is it acceptable to use either У меня есть четыре хорошие книги or У меня есть четыре хороших книги? Or is this just a very common mistake?

[oryx_and_crake]

I don't see any conflict in the responses. Четыре хорошие книги and четыре хороших книги is equally acceptable.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Ok, thanks to everyone who responded.