Reviewing Cases

From Russian For Everyone, some Review Exercises for the various cases:

• Prepositional 1
• Prepositional 2
• Prepositional 3
• Prepositional 4
• Accusative 1
• Accusative 2
• Accusative 3
• Genitive 1
• Genitive 2
• Genitive 3
• Dative 1
• Dative 2
• Instrumental 1
• Instrumental 2
• Instrumental 3

Adjectives: Prepositional Case

Adjectives must agree in case with the nouns the modify.

The prepositional case endings are very simple. For masculine and neuter nouns, the ending is either ОМ for regular hard (ЫЙ) or those with stems ending in К (КИЙ) and for end-stressed (ОЙ), or EМ for everything else except the третий type which takes ЬЕМ. For feminines, it's either ОЙ for all hard endings or ЕЙ for soft ones, with ЬЕЙ for the третий type.

Note:

• masculines ending in A take masculine adjectives though the nouns decline like feminines
• the special locative in У still takes the regular adjectival ending (ОМ or EM).

Here are examples of the adjectival endings.

1. Masculine and Neuter nouns

санаторий о хорошем санатории about the good clinic
брат о большом брате about the big brother
чай о сладком чае about sweet tea
сад o красивом садe about the beautiful garden
герой o храбром герое about a brave hero
день о жарком дне about the hot day
папa о нашем папу about our Dad
порт в американском порту in an American port
дом о собачьем доме about the dog house

здание о високом здании about the tall building
имя об мом имени about my name
окно об открытом окне about the open window
море о синем море about the blue sea
утро о ранем утре about the early morning
письмо о третьем письме about the third letter

2. Feminine nouns

ночь о тëмной ночи about the dark night
вода о холодной воде about the cold water
армия об Красной армии about the Red Army
мать о доброй матери about the good mother
улыцa о соседнем улыцу  about the neighboring street
морда о лисьей морде about the fox's face

Noun Declension Types

Some Russian grammarians don't talk of "masculine declension" or "feminine declension", but rather of (like Latin) First, Second, and Third Declensions.

One advantage to this is that declension types are now more independent of gender.  All nouns ending in a hard consonant, Й, О or Е are in First Declension. All nouns ending in А or Я are in Second Declension. Only with nouns ending in Ь does gender matter; masculine ones are First and feminine are Third.

Also with this system, the handful of nouns that are truly odd (those neuters ending in МЯ and the nouns Мать, Дочь, Путь, and Дитя) are simply categorized by themselves.

Some learners prefer this system. If so, here are downloadable charts from I.M. Pulkina's A Short Russian Reference Grammar:

• First Declension
• First Declension nouns with У genitives - Rules for Use
• First Declension nouns with У locatives (special prepositional) - List of nouns
• Second and Third Declensions
• Peculiarities in the Plural
• Special Declensions (-МЯ, Мать, Дочь, Путь, and Дитя)

And here is a downloadable file with the Full Set of Declension from I.S. Milovanova's Russian Grammar. Note that she swaps the names First and Second.

Nouns: Cases: Prepositional

The prepositional case (in English, the "object case" is used here) follows (some) prepositions and basically names the place where actions occur. (Thus, an alternate name some resources may use is locative case.)

Prepositional case answers the questions: о ком? о чëм? где? about whom? about what? where?
In Russian grammar books, when there is a table of case endings, prepositional is always shown with O, because this case must follow a preposition.

(See here for discussion of prepositions)

Prepositional case is introduced early in our book because it's so easy. There are only two* endings, И and Е, and the rules for which are simple and as close to being without exceptions as Russian gets. There's no consideration of animacy and only ten nouns where gender matters; it's all about the way the noun ends.

1. Does it end in ИЙ, ИЕ, or ИЯ? Then replace the final letter with И:

санаторий о санатории about the clinic
здание о здании about the building
армия об армии about the army

2. Does it end in Ь? Then replace the Ь with И:

ночь о ночи about the night
день о дне about the day
мать о матери about a mother

(Note: the -EP- infix shows up in all oblique cases (i.e., all but nominative singular) of both мать and дочь (so o дочери).)

3. Is it a neuter noun ending in МЯ? (This is the trickiest, but you'll get used to these nouns and their infix.) Then replace the Я with ЕНИ.

имя об имени about the name

4. Anything else? Replace any final vowel with E and add E to final consonants. Two spelling notes: Й plus E is just E, so the Й vanishes, and yes, words ending in E have the same form as their nominatives.

брат о брате about the brother
чай о чае about tea
герой o герое about a hero
папа о папе about Dad
сад o садe about the garden
окно об окне about a window
море о море about the sea
вода о воде about water

* Okay, actually there are three. (You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?) Due to an historical quirk, some masculine (mostly) one-syllable nouns (or compounds with them) have a different ending in the locative (which is why O is used in grammar tables and charts). These nouns are -E with о, при, and по, about, under (of time), and along. But with в and на, in and on, they have the ending -У:

сад garden o садe but в саду in the garden
день day о дне but на дню on the day
порт port o портe but в порту in the port
край edge  о крае but на краю at the edge
берег shore  о береге but на берегу on the shore
аэропорт airport o аэропортe but в аэропорту at the airport

Prepositions: Types and Case governance

Types of Prepositions

Prepositions may be classified as derivative or non-derivative. Non-derivative prepositions (sometimes called simple) are prepositions purely and primarily (English examples are of, on, to); these may govern one, two, or (rarely) three cases. The meaning of the preposition will differ when the case does.  Derivative prepositions began as other parts of speech, usually phrases (English examples are  beside, due to, and considering). Russian derivative prepositions are adverbial, nominal, and verbal, depending on whether they originated from adverbs, nouns, or verbs; and are simple (one word) or compound  (containing another preposition - English compound examples are things like due to, according to, because of, regardless of). They only ever take one case.


Prepositional Case

The prepositional case (in English, the "object case" is used here) mainly names the place where actions occur. (Thus, an alternate name some resources may use is locative case.)

Prepositional case answers the questions: о ком? о чëм? где? about whom? about what? where?
In Russian grammar books, when there is a table of case endings, prepositional is always shown with O, because this case, alone among Russian cases, must follow a preposition.


There are only five prepositions that take (govern) Prepositional, all of them non-derivative. 

One case:
при, under (of time), by

Two cases: 
в in, на on, о about

Three cases:
 по, along


Accusative Case

Accusative case (in English, the "object case" is used here) mainly names the recipient of action or the thing acted upon. It answers the questions: кого? что? whom? what?

There are fifteen prepositions that take Accusative: ten non-derivative and five derivative, the latter all verbal - three simple and two compound.

One case:
про about, сквозь through, через across

Two cases:
в into, на onto, о about, под under, за behind, for

Three cases:
по along, с (of time) approximately

Derivatives:
исключая excluding, включая including, спустя later, несмотря на despite, невзирая на regardless of