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[xswt-cherryx.livejournal.com]

I am very confused about the genitive case.
I understand how to use it in the sence of saying 'I have, he has, she has' etc
I also understand how to use it in the state of absence or lacking .

But everyother way of using the genitive case confuses me.
example
Я студентка, учусь в университете на факультете журналистики.
I am a student, I study at the university in faculty of journalism.

I do see that journalism is in the genitive form, and I kind of understand that the faculty 'owns' journalism, it is the faculty of journalism and I do understand another example 'овстановка авеобуса' the stop of the bus. it does make sense... but why would we say 'мой брат' it doesn't seem to be in genitive? what case is мой anyways??

Comments

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Мой брат is in the nominative case. The genitive would be моего брата.

[nymphatacita.livejournal.com]

you say "my brother" in nominative because my is an adjective, describing the type of brother he is. It's no different than saying "lazy brother," "older brother," or "famous brother."

[oryx_and_crake]

"I have" does not have anything to do with genitive. ("I don't have" would require genitive though).

мой брат is in nominative, but you can put it in any case that your sentence requires: моего брата, моему брату etc. Please note that it is брат, not мой that directs the case. Мой (моя, мое etc.) will take the same case as the word it modifies (брат). Again, thid has nothing to do with genitive case. Мой (моя, мое) is a possessive pronoun. The only connection I see to a genitive case will be in combinations like брат Коли (Kolya's brother) where the word брат directs the word Коля in the same way that in остановка автобуса the word остановка directs the word автобус and puts it in genitive.

[xswt-cherryx.livejournal.com]

isn't this correct using this genitive case?

У Джима есть кошка.
or
У Вовы завтра контрольная

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, indeed. Sorry, I did not get your meaning at first. But again this has nothing to do with мой брат.

[samtaburetkin.livejournal.com]

Instead of мой брат you could have said брат меня which is a legitimate genitive, but sounds quite weird and non-natural. It would have been much better in брат моей подруги, fot instance.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Well, "мой брат" has nothing to do with genitive, as "мой" is a possessive pronoun almost completely analogous to English "my", so it's just "my brother". And by Russian rules possessive pronouns should have the case of a noun they refers to, which is nominative in this case. You may construct a use of genitive here as a calque of "brother of mine", which in Russian would be "брат меня" and legitimate genitie, but this construction if awkward and rarely used, if still grammatically crrect.

Another point about genitive use is quite simple: there's a general rule of thumb that you should use genitive in every place you say "...of..." in English.

[arenhaime.livejournal.com]

you should use genitive in every place you say "...of..." in English.

Excepting situations you've explained above:
while to use a construction like "a brother\sister\friend of mine\yours\theirs" etc in English is fine,
in Russian to use a possessive pronoun is more preferable.

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Also, where English speakers say "all of (smth)", in Russian one simply uses the correct form of весь.

[brocster.livejournal.com]

I can understand your confusion here because it's typically stated (in textbooks) that the Genitive case is used "to signal possession". Unfortunately, that's not really the best definition/description (as you've noticed), since the у меня (or у Джима/Вовы) construction in English signals possession (I have; Jim/Vladimir has)... or with мой брат seeming to indicate "possession" (because it's my brother).

Although the Genitive case is required by certain prepositions (such as у, без, от, до) and constructions (like the so-called "Genitive of negation" -- Нет воды/денег, etc.), the cases that seem to be confusing to you (as in the "faculty of journalism" or the "bus stop") can be viewed as follows:

(In the majority of these cases, we will have either "of" or "'s" in English.)

So, if we want to show the relationship between "title" (название) and "book" (книга), we put them together and put the word "book" in the Genitive -- название книги -- to get "the title of the book".

Or with "beginning" (начало) and "film" (фильм), we can say начало фильма to indicate "the beginning of the film".

We can even have a number of nouns where there is a relationship between each successive pair, as in:

- the name (имя) of the wife (жена) of the president (президент) --> имя жены президента

- or the name of the wife of the president of Russia (Россия) --> имя жены президента России

- or even the name of the brother of the wife of the president of Russia --> имя брата жены президента России, etc.

Of course, in "normal" English, we would say something like "the President of Russia's wife's brother's name" or "the Russian President's wife's brother's name" or even "the name of the Russian President's wife's brother". Either way, the Russian version uses the Genitive case to show the relationship between each pair of nouns ("name" and "brother", "brother" and "wife", "wife" and "president", etc.).

With the phrase "my brother", as correctly stated by a few posters above, we are not dealing with two nouns but, rather, a (possessive) adjective ("my") and a noun... so there's no need for the Genitive.

With the phrase "bus stop", it's the same situation... in English. We can use the word "bus" as an adjective (telling us what kind of "stop" it is -- not for taxis or shuttles, but for buses). You could do the same thing in Russian -- автобусная остановка -- or you could just use two nouns and the Genitive case to show the relationship --> остановка автобуса.

The "cool" (or interesting?) thing about these Genitive constructions (indicating the relationship between two nouns) is that the second word of the pair remains in the Genitive, even when the phrase is declined (because we still want to indicate the relationship between the two nouns):

- the price (цена) of the car (машина) --> цена машины
- Do you know the price of the car? --> Знаешь цену машины?
- I asked about the price of the car. --> Я спросил о цене машины.

... and so on.

Well, I hope that helped.

- Andrew : )

[xswt-cherryx.livejournal.com]

wow that is a very good explination
thanks for taking the time to write that up!

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

You don't say "It's of my brother", do you? My = мой, brother = брат. Everything's simple :)
If you want to use genitive, you might say "брат меня" (a brother of mine). No, it's a joke, don't say it :)

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

it is true that the genitive is used to signal posession or lack of something. however, it also serves for other purposes. there are quite a few prepositions that take the genitive, such as возле, от, and из, and you also use it for comparisons sometimes (выше меня). don't worry about rational too much, just remember when certain cases are called for.