I'm afflicted with RGADD

[david-us.livejournal.com]

... that's Russian Grammar Attention Deficit Disorder. :)

I'm currently working through some lessons in participles. From what I have experienced (as limited as it is), these are much more common in written Russian than spoken Russian.

In any case, I ran across the following example sentence:

Не получив ответа на мое письмо, я написал ему опять.
Receiving no reply to my letter, I wrote to him again.

I try to understand all elements of these sentences.

I understand the adverbial participle (получив), but, there it is again, that blasted genitive case for a direct object (ответа)! Some of you may recall, we have discussed this in the past.

This usage seems so random to me and, although many of you tried your best to explain it to me, I still don't see the pattern or understand under what conditions the direct object is placed in the genitive and when it is not. Again, this only seems to be an issue in negative sentences.

For instance, wouldn't the following sentence be grammatically correct?

Получив ответ на мое письмо, не было нужно ему позвонить.

Comments

[miconazole.livejournal.com]

Well I should preface this post with the warning that my Russian sucks balls but "не получив ответ" is like "not having received THE reply", like you were waiting for some specific letter and you didn't get it, while "не получив ответа" is more like "not having received any reply". It's not the same as the partitive genitive in your other post. I don't think the distinction exists in the positive, it's just "получив ответ ..." as you said.

[oryx_and_crake]

I think you got pretty good explanations last time.

As to your example, the first part, "Получив ответ на мое письмо", is correct (свое is better though).

The second part, however, does not agree with the first. When you have an adverbial participle (деепричастие) in the first part, you cannot use indirect cases (мне нужно) in the second. Here are some correct versions:

Получив ответ на свое письмо, я понял, что мне не нужно ему звонить.
Получив ответ на свое письмо, я не стал ему звонить.
Получив ответ на свое письмо, я ему не позвонил.
Так как я получил ответ на свое письмо, мне не нужно было ему звонить.

Note also the difference in usage of звонить/позвонить. Нужно позвонить is OK, but не нужно звонить requires imperfective.

[oryx_and_crake]

Opposite examples (genitive after negation)

Не получив ответа на свое письмо, я должен был ему позвонить.

[creiz.livejournal.com]

Получив ответ на мое письмо, не было нужно ему позвонить.

What you're tryin' to use here in constructing this sentence, the so-called Nominative Absolute Participial Construction (независимый причастный оборот), is purely English thing. Like in "The weather permitting, we shall go to the country." Russian doesn't have it. You see, the first part (the one containin' a participle) in English sentence doesn't depend on the second part. But in Russian it's impossible. The participle construction must depend on the main sentence and have the same subject. Actually, this little thing has to be emphasized even for native Russian speakers. As I remember it, we were given this example of wrong usage: Подъезжая к станции, его шляпа слетела. Look at this sentence and you will see, that put this way it has meaning 'when his hat was driving up to the station, it had been blown away by the wind', which is complete and utter nonsence.

I don't know if it can be of any help, but since you read Russian OK it might be worth a go:
http://www.alleng.ru/mybook/3gram/6verb_non-fin_part6.htm - here this comparison b/w Russian and English from the point of view of Russian.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Looking for an answer myself--doesn't this have to do with the negation expressed here? If we go back to basic Russian, negation of possession requires the object to be in the genetive (u menya net chego-to)... does this also extend here? If so, it would explain why "otvet" must be in the genetive.

Am I completely wrong? Please explain.

[max-first.livejournal.com]

1. Не получив ответа на мое письмо, я написал ему опять.
Получив ответ на мое письмо, я написал ему опять.

You're right, there are nominative in non-negative sentences, and genitive in negative ones. It seem to be more or less general rule. But it may depend on the verb (adverbial participle):

Поговорив о президенте, мы уснули.
Не поговорив о президенте, мы разошлись.

[david-us.livejournal.com]

OK, I understand that. Yet, it seems Russians do not feel the need to make this distinction with sentences that are not negative.

You seem to be saying that:
"Не получив ответа" means "not having received any reply", thus requiring the genitive, whereas "Не получив ответ" would mean "not having received the reply". Fine - I understand that.

But "Получив ответ" could mean *either* "having received a reply" -or- "having received the reply" since there is no possible genitive construction available for affirmative (non-negative) statements. Is this correct?

[khathi.livejournal.com]

First of all, absolute participle constructs are INCORRECT in Russian. It's a calque from English and French, where it's okay, but in Russian it is simply bad grammar. Classical and much mocked example would be "Подъезжая к станции, с меня слетела шляпа". While this would be good in English, in Russian this means "While my hat war nearing the station, it was bown up with the wind", as the subject here would be hat, not me, due to the way Russian participles work.

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, exactly
получив ответ - не получив ответа

[david-us.livejournal.com]

But that is not a rule that always applies.

For instance, aren't the above sentences grammatically correct for their intended meaning?

Я не читаю книг.
I don't read books. (This person simply doesn't read at all - ever.)

Я не читаю книги.
I am not reading the books. (The teacher assigned the students some specific books to read and this student is not reading them.)

[oryx_and_crake]

I would not agree as to the second sentence. In my opinion, it does not mean specific books (not the effect you get when you say "I do not read THE books" in English. In my opinion, these two sentence are pretty much interchangeable. If you want to say I am not reading THE books (meaning a specific set of books that the teacher assigned) you'll have to say Я не читаю те книги, or denote in some other way what books you mean.

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

But "Получив ответ" could mean *either* "having received a reply" -or- "having received the reply" since there is no possible genitive construction available for affirmative (non-negative) statements. Is this correct?

Yes, it is correct, except in the cases of partitive genitive (which does not apply to your examples). For example, "Отве́дав су́па, я отпра́вился домо́й" (Having tried the soup, I went home).

[david-us.livejournal.com]

But the partitive genitive is a completely different grammatical category unrelated to constructions we are talking about here.

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. It is not always possible to find one-to-one correspondence between English and Russian grammar constructs.

E.g. Я читаю can mean I read or I am reading - depending on the context. There is nothing in the verb form to tell you whether this is a habitual action or something that is going on right now.

Another example is "I am reading [the] books" - there is no way in Russian to indicate whether you mean particular books or books in general unless you use an indicative pronoun (читаю эти книги).

[david-us.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, how would you say this "much mocked" sentence correctly?

[david-us.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent explanation! Thanks. I think it may slowly be sinking in now.

[oryx_and_crake]

Когда я подъезжал к станции, с меня слетела шляпа.

(By the way, it's from Anton Chekhov's short story "Жалобная книга": http://ilibrary.ru/text/1072/p.1/index.html)

[khathi.livejournal.com]

"Когда я подъезжал к станции, с меня слетела шляпа".

[oryx_and_crake]

Glad to be of help. I was afraid that this will finally entangle you in the intricacies of Russian :-)

[jim-24601.livejournal.com]

The exact translation of your incorrect example would be "Nearing the station, my hat flew off", which is wrong in English for exactly the same reason (and would likely be mocked). The correct way, as in Russian, would be to say "As I was nearing the station, my hat flew off."

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

Correct. Hence my note that it doesn't apply to your examples. However, it is a "possible genitive construction available for affirmative (non-negative) statements" so I had to mention it.

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

Так как я получил ответ на свое письмо, мне не нужно было ему звонить and Не получив ответа на свое письмо, я должен был ему позвонить are incorrect: the first is for an obvious reason, the latter is incorrect because of the aspect: if the clause verb is Perfect, the main verb has to be Perfect, too.

[oryx_and_crake]

Sorry, I don't get your point. For the first sentence, the reasons may be "obvious" for you, but they are not for me; could you please elaborate?
As to the second sentence, both получил and позвонить are perfective (not "Perfect"); moreover, I am not aware of the rule that requires verbs in both parts of a complex sentence have the same aspect; could you please quote it, preferably with a reference to Rosenthal or another recognized source on grammar?

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

I'm not really good at English terminology of grammatical things that are absent in English, and, 'course, it's perfective. But we should regard должен был (which is imperfective), not позвонить. Quoting would be difficult, since it's much more complicated and I don't remember the exact one (compare: Совершив преступление, Раскольников каялся, though Совершив преступление, Раскольников сходил с ума is impossible; may be it is somehow related to repetitions — каяться is something that contains many similar sub-actions, while сходить с ума is not; may be the reason is that compound verbal clusters cannot participate in such structures).
My fault, the first sentence has just sounded to me as something incorrect (I'd rather say, в звонке отпала необходимость or something); we were speaking about participles and so I've noticed that subjects are different (though we haven't any participles here, and so that is not a problem). It just sounds weird, sorry one more time.

[oryx_and_crake]

I think you are confused. Consider the following sentences:
Поскольку в доме кончился хлеб, мне нужно было идти в магазин.
Совершив преступление, Раскольников должен был покаяться (не мог не покаяться).
Are you saying this is wrong too?

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

Yes, probably you are right, but I'm still sure there was some rule regulating those.

[oryx_and_crake]

I vaguely remember a rule that forbids mixing perfective and imperfective verbs in a coordinated row (однородные члены).

[o-jovem-louco.livejournal.com]

That's another one, and this is quite well-known. Off-top: is there any article on the Web where it would be possible to learn that English terminology of non-English grammar?

[oryx_and_crake]

I don't know about articles. I usually look up stuff in Multitran. And I picked up a lot just reading the discussions here.