The haunting of the "negative genitive"

[david-us.livejournal.com]

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand this ...

I know I seem to be obsessing on this issue, but it keeps rearing its ugly head. More and more I'm discovering that this construction frequently occurs in Russian.

From what I have learned here, the genitive form of the direct object is often used in negative sentences when that object is meant to be very general ...

For instance:

Я не получил ответ. (no genitive)
I did not receive the answer. (i.e. the specific answer I was hoping for.)

As opposed to ...

Я не получил ответа. (genitive)
I did not receive an answer. (any answer!)

Now I stumble across the following sentence in my studies:

Не ешьте этих яблок, они ещё зелёные.
Don't eat these apples, they're still green. (This is the book's translation)

To me, this seems fairly specific with regards to the "green apples." Not just any green apples, rather, these specific apples.

How would you translate the following sentences in Russian?

"Don't eat green apples, they'll make you sick."

"If you eat that green apple, you'll get sick."

Thanks!

Comments

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Don't eat green apples, they'll make you sick.
Не ешь/ешьте зеленых яблок, от них тебе/Вам/вам будет плохо.
Не ешь/ешьте зеленые яблоки, от них тебе/Вам/вам будет плохо.

If you eat that green apple, you'll get sick.
Если ты/Вы съешь/съедите это зеленое яблоко, тебе/Вам станет плохо.

(I would also point to the word 'станет' used here instead of 'будет' because with 'будет' It would be ambiguous and could mean 'you will regret' as in 'you will be punished for eating my precious green apple' :).

In the latter case I would never say "Если ты съешь этого яблока..."
However, it is very possible that I would say "Если ты съешь этого пирога..." in which case it would mean a part of the pie, not the whole pie as in "Если ты съешь этот пирог..."

As they've already said here, don't concentrate too much on this topic. :)