The Noun Case System

The case system in Russian does two things. First, it marks the grammatical functions of nouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject, object and indirect object of the sentence. (This means that these nouns are free to be ordered almost anywhere in the sentence since their function is clearly indicated by their form.) Second, cases mark certain adverbial functions such as the time, manner, and means of carrying our an action, which are marked by prepositions in English, e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasm This function leads to the case system being associated with prepositions. Remember: in Russian all prepositions are associated with a case which is attached to their objects. Since only nouns can express case, this means that only nouns may be objects of prepositions.

The Case Functions

Every noun in Russian must be selected for one of six categories when they are used in a sentence. To indicate which category has been selected by the speaker, the endings of the noun are changed. This means that each (declinable) noun has up to six different forms, differing only in the final letter or two on the end. The six categories and their functions are listed in Table 1:

Table 1: Cases and Case Functions

Case Function
Nominative Subject of the sentence Accusative Direct object Genitive The 'of' case: Possession, Quantity & Negation Dative The 'to/for' case: Indirect object, Recipient Prepositional The 'at' case: Location Instrumental The 'by/with' case: Means of doing something So the case form of a noun indicates its function in sentence or phrase. Here is how it works. First, the Nominative Case indicates that the noun is the subject of the sentence while the accusative indicates that it is the direct object. In the following examples, the subject is in white boldface type and the direct object is in black boldface type. In Russian the subject is in its nominative case form while the object is in its accusative case form. . 'Ivan sees the table.

. 'Ivan closes the window. In this particular instance, the Accusative Case of and are coincidentally identical to the nominative; usually, these two case forms are distinct, as we will see further on.

The Accusative Case serves primarily to indicate the direct object of the verb, the noun to which something is done. . 'Ivan sees the table.

. 'Ivan closes the book. The direct object normally is placed after the verb in Russian. However, since it is the case ending and not its position in the sentence which determines the direct object, word order is not critical in Russian. The following sentences are equally grammatical in Russian. . 'Ivan sees the table.

. 'Masha closes the book. The actual positioning of the subject and direct object depends upon the context: the topic of conversation, emphasis, and the like. The accusative case is also used to indicate time, particularly non-punctual time, repeated times and continual time. . 'Sasha works every day. . 'Masha worked all night (long).

In the first sentence the work is repeated every day; in the second, it continued over a long period. The Dative Case marks the indirect object or recipient of something. It appears in red in the following examples. . 'Ivan gave the table to Valery.

. 'Ivan wrote a letter to (his) friend. The dative is also prominent as the subject in impersonal constructions, too. . Ivan is cold.

. It's Masha's turn to clean up the room. The dative is generally used when the subject is the goal of the action, so would imply that Ivan is the source, not the recipient of the coldness. implies that the clean-up is up to or assigned to Masha.

The Instrumental Case of a noun indicates that its reference is the means by which an action is carried out. In the following example, the instrumental noun is blue. . 'Ivan wrote a letter to (his) friend with a pen.' In English this function is marked by the prepositions 'by' and 'with', e.g. He wrote the letter with a pencil or He found the letter by chance. In both instances the prepositional phrase tells us how the action indicated by the verb was carried out. The Genitive Case is the 'of' case in that it translates English prepositional phrases beginning with 'of'. In the following example the genitive expression appears in yellow. . 'Ivan wrote a letter to a friend of Boris with a pen.' The genitive is the case of possession, so it will also replace English possessives like 'Boris's friend'; however, take note that Russians always say 'friend of Boris' and keep the nouns in that order. Possession is also expressed with the genitive and the preposition , as in 'my arm', 'my brother'. This expression is often combined with place expressions to produce phrases like 'Right now he is in his room'. One final major use of the genitive is in marking quantification. The objects of words indicating quantity are always placed in the genitive in Russian. In English some words require 'of' ( several of his friends) while others do not (many of friends). All Russian words indicating quantity, including all numbers, require the genitive. 'much [of] milk' five [of] kilograms

a few [of] kilograms The Prepositional Case is so called because it is the only case which is used exclusively with prepositions and it is used with only three prepositions: + Prep 'in, at' + Prep 'on, at' o + Prep 'about' This case was formerly called the 'locative' case because it is used primarily to indicate the location of objects: 'The book is on the table 'The book is in the drawer'

These are the basics of Russian case functions. We also have a quick review of the case functions here. The cases are also required with all prepositions. Once you understand how cases work, you need to know the endings on the nouns (and adjectives) which mark these cases. First, keep in mind that the ending signifying a given case depends upon the declension class of the noun. In other words, each declension class has its own set of case endings, generally distinct from those of other cases. There are instances of overlap which we will take advantage of in order to simplify learning the Russian case system.

The Case Declensions

We have discovered what a declension class is and how adjectives and verbs agree with nouns according to their declension class and form (spelling). The next question is: What is a declension? This section takes up that question. Every declinable Russian noun has up to six slightly varying forms which are referred to as its declension. Russian nouns decline according to their declension class which means that a noun's set of forms depends upon its declension class. The set of endings for a first declension noun is illustrated in Table 1 ( = 'table', = 'window'):

Declension I
Case Masculine Nominative Accusative Genitive - Dative - Prepositional - Instrumental - Looks complicated, huh? Well, here are a few endings. Neuter - - - - - - particulars Case Ending Nothing or -o/e = Nom or Gen -a/ (or -y) -/ -e (or -y) -/ which will help you remember the

The accusative and nominative endings for Declension I nouns are identical unless the noun refers to an animate being, a human or an animal. In that case, the accusative endings are the same as the genitive endings. The prepositional case ending is -e for all Declension I nouns, regardless of the hardness or softness of the final consonant. It gets even better: the same ending is also the prepositional case ending for Declension II nouns! Isn't that great? Things get simpler and simpler.

The second declension contains nouns that agree both in the feminine and masculine; however, it is more closely identified with feminine than with masculine nouns. It differs from Declension I in that it has an accusative ending, -y, and so does not have to rely on the nominative and genitive endings. It does share the same prepositional case ending with the first declension, though. (In the table below, means 'sister' and means 'uncle'.)

Declension II
Case Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Prepositional Instrumental Hard Stem Feminine - - - - - - Soft Stem Masculine - - - - - - Case Ending -/ -/ -/ - -e -/

Like most aspects of Russian grammar, the second declension is pretty simple and straightforward, requiring no commentary. Declension III contains nouns with feminine and neuter agreement. The feminine nouns all end on a soft sign while the neuter ones all end on the combination - in the nominative. This is by far the simplest (and most boring) of the declensions--most of the endings are the same, -. The only complication that adds interest is the fact that the in the nominative-accusative of the neuter nouns is a replacement for the suffix - which appears elsewhere in the declension, as the following table shows ( = 'door' and = 'name').

Declension III
Case Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Prepositional Instrumental Feminine - - - - Neuter - - - - - - Case Ending -/ = Nom. - - - -/

This declension is the simplest of all the declensions for not only are its nominative and accusative endings identical, all other endings are also identical except for the instrumental. The neuter instrumental ending is the same as the neuter Declension I ending, -, leaving only the feminine instrumental ending unique. That's the only one you'll have to remember!

The fourth declension, of course, is the declension of plural nouns. Not only do a large number of nouns without singular forms inherently belong it, e.g. 'gate', '(eye)glasses', 'ink', but many (though by far not all) singular nouns may be pluralized by simply shifting them from their original declension class to Declension IV.

Declension IV (Plural)
Case Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Prepositional Instrumental Hard Stem Masculine - - - - - - Soft Stem Masculine - - - - - - Neuter - - - - - Case Ending -/, -/, -e = Nom or Gen -//Nothing -/ -/ -/-

The major problem in Declension IV is in determining the nominative ending for singular nouns which have been transformed into plural. By and large, nouns ending on consonants or -/ receive -/ in the plural while those ending on -o/e receive -/. However, the endings are occasionally reversed to that the masculine nouns receive -/ and the neuter ones, -/. This is just to add color to a language whose pristine simplicity could otherwise lead to boredom.

All Nouns Have an Accent

Like the verbs and adjectives, nouns have specific accent patterns throughout their declensional paradigm. Like verbs and adjectives, nouns may have fixed or movable accent and the fixed accent may be fixed on the stem or endings. 'Fixed' means that it falls on the same syllable regardless of the case that the noun is in. The noun 'book', for example, has fixed stem accents while 'sister' has fixed end accent.

Fixed Noun Accent

Case Stem Accent Ending Accent Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Prepositional Instrumental The movable accent pattern among nouns varies according to declension class. There are no movable patterns in the first and third declensions except among those nouns with the prepositional 2 endings, which are always accented. This means that if the stem is regularly accented, accent will move on the prepositional 2 endings.

Declensions II and IV do have movable patterns, however, as illustrated in the following diagram.

Movable Noun Accent

Case Declension II Declension IV Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Prepositional Instrumental The movable accent pattern in Declension III is for accent to fall on the ending except in the accusative. The pattern in Declension IV is for the accent to fall on the stem in the nominativeaccusative and on the ending in the remaining four cases.

Exceptions to the Regular Case System

This is an introduction to the regular case system of Russian. There are unfortunately, a few exceptions to the regularities. The exceptions are listed below.

Noun Irregularities
1. The Genitive II. There is a small group of nouns, mostly referring to food, which uses the suffix -y for the Genitive Singular. Not all nouns referring to food take this Genitive II ending, so you will have to memorize those that do.

The Genitive II (-y)

NomSg

Genitive
- - - - - -

Gloss
sugar rice tobacco cheese tea chocolate

2. The Prepositional II. The second Prepositional case is marked by an (always) accented ending -y. However, this ending is not used with all the prepositions requiring the Prepositional case but only with the prepositions and . It is not used with the preposition o or any other preposition governing the Prepositional case. So one would say 'I saw him in the garden' but 'we talked about the garden'.

Prepositional II (accented -y)

NomSg

Prep II
/

Gloss
on the floor in the garden in the woods on/in the corner on the bridge on the Don in the Crimea on the edge in a line last year in port

3. Masculine Plurals on -a. The ending -a was originally a Dual Number ending, marking two objects when all Russian nouns had Singular, Dual, and Plural forms. For that reason, almost all masculine nouns which come in pairs (eyes, horns, banks of rivers) use this ending. Now, however, it is not only a wide-spread Nominative Plural ending, it is often attached to new words entering the language, so it is productive. Here are a few common nouns that it is used with.

Nominative Plural on -a
NomSg

Plural

Gloss
houses trains addresses cities flowers forests evenings coasts, banks voices horns eyes (journal) issues doctors professors teachers

4. Masculine Nouns with Plurals in -. Nouns which take - as an ending are, fortuntely, few in number. Remember, however, that if a noun takes this ending in the Nominative Plural and the ending is accented, the Genitive Plural will be - (remove the soft sign); if the ending is not accented, the Genitive Plural ending will be -.

Plurals on -
NomSg

NomPl

Gloss
brothers chairs leaves feathers trees links husbands friends sons

Genitive

5. Masculine Nouns with the Singular Suffix -. There is also a subregular set of nouns with a singular suffix that disappears in the plural. Moreover, the Nominative Plural ending for these nouns is -e and the Genitive Plural ending is zero, i. e. no ending at all.

Nouns with Singular on -

Singular

NomPl

GenPl

Gloss
Englishman citizen northener southerner Kievite

Otherwise, these nouns decline normally in the singular and plural.

6. Russian Family Names. Finally, you must keep in mind that Russian family names decline slightly different from other nouns in that they take mixtures of noun and adjective endings.

Russian Family Names on - & -

Case

Masculine

Feminine

Plural

Notice the following. In the masculine, all the endings are noun endings except in the Instrumental. In the Feminine, all the endings are adjectival except for the Nominative and Accusative. In the Plural, all endings are adjectival except the Nominative.