18
votes
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Why is лицо in the prepositional case, and why does свой not match its case?
You're reading the Bible in the Synodal translation (1813—1876) which uses archaic language full of Church Slavonic words and forms. Лице is an archaic form of лицо, it is in the Accusative case which ...
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16
votes
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Is there a reason why "чёрт" and "сосе́д" don't decline for nominative plural according to standard Russian spelling rules?
Сосед and чёрт are the only nouns in modern Russian that retained the old Russian nominative plural form, so in a sense they are the only "correct" nouns with the historical -о stem. All others use ...
- 56k
15
votes
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How to indicate "photograph by"
It very much depends on where you want to put that phrase:
If it's a signature on the photo, just the name (in the nominative case) is enough: https://www.artlebedev.ru/kovodstvo/sections/169/
A ...
- 16.6k
14
votes
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Why does "в субботу?" end in "-y"? Is it accusative?
In Russian, when we answer the question "когда?", we use different prepositions and nouns. The choice of case depends on the noun.
If we use nouns such as момент, секунда, минута, час, день ...
- 21.9k
14
votes
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When is "это" declined?
Это is not declined when it means "this is". Or, for that matter, "these are"; you'd still say это книги "these/they are books", because эти книги would be an incomplete statement strictly meaning "...
- 19.2k
13
votes
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Plural for indeclinable nouns
You just leave it as is. Like 'deer' in English - "One deer", "many deer", etc.
У неё уже есть три пальто - зачем ей ещё одно?
Он может делать два сальто подряд.
На столе лежат ...
- 1,740
12
votes
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Genitive of радио
Many loanwords don't decline in Russian, mostly those that don't intuitively fit into one of the existing paradigms (no regular Russian neuter noun ends in -о preceded by a vowel), and to see why, it'...
- 19.2k
10
votes
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Тайна рождения китов, овец и медведей
Словообразование - штука нерегулярная. То, что есть белеть, чернеть, синеть и зеленеть, не значит, что есть фиолетоветь.
Просто: родился китенок, ежонок и т.д.
Овцы, как правильно уже заметили, ...
- 16.6k
10
votes
Accepted
Wuhan: masculine, feminine, or either?
Most sources I could find consider Ухань (sic) a masculine word: от Уханя, к Уханю etc.:
БРЭ
БСЭ
Географическая энциклопедия
, but there are some that consider it feminine:
Словарь собственных имён ...
- 56k
9
votes
Why does the first person singular future of победить not exist?
This particular problem affects most of the verbs in which [д] of the stem alternates with [жд] in their imperfective infinitive and past tense forms. These belong to a group of verbs called defective ...
- 19.6k
8
votes
«И беспечной птицей» - why instrumental?
It is instrumental case indeed.
One of the functions of instrumental in Russian is conveying sense of similarity. Usually it can be replaced with an analytical construct with как ("like"):
...
- 56k
8
votes
Accepted
«И беспечной птицей» - why instrumental?
"И беспечной птицей" is indeed in an instrumental case - it answers the question "Улетаешь кем?" - птицей.
To better understand why it is so, think of this phrase as of something with hidden verb ...
- 38k
8
votes
Accepted
Двадцать один хорош(?) год - declension after number 21
All the numerals ending in 1, exept for those that end in 11 (11, 111, 711, 1011, etc.), need the following noun in the Nominatve case singular. If there is also an attribute adjective, it agrees with ...
- 26.1k
8
votes
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Usage of declined numbers
In your particular example, 250,000 would be nominative to begin with.
To take an example where you'd actually need instrumental, though — say, "a suitcase with 250,000 euros in it":
чемодан с ...
- 19.2k
8
votes
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Как склоняется слово "Нод(а)"
Вариативность по роду - довольно распространенное явление, особенно среди заимствованных слов: компонент/компонента, метод/метода, вольер/вольера и др.
Какой бы род вы ни выбрали, старайтесь ...
- 16.6k
8
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Why does "в субботу?" end in "-y"? Is it accusative?
In languages that have prepositions and cases, like Russian, each preposition in each of its meanings needs a particular case of the noun phrase that follows it.
As for the preposition в when used to ...
- 26.1k
7
votes
Accepted
Are names for organizations indeclinable or not?
First of all, "Я заинтересован в + Prepositional case" ("в культуре" is actually Prepositional, not Dative) is a business term, that is, you are interested in something because you will get profit ...
- 26.1k
7
votes
Genitive of радио
The words like радио, патио, метро, меню, кофе etc are indeclinable.
The rules (in Russian): external link.
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7
votes
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Which form of год is года here in “1341 года”?
Апрельским утром 1341 года would be spelt as Апрельским утром тысяча триста сорок первого года.
Утро (morning) here is ins.sg. The morning is specified to be in April (with the adjective in the same ...
- 171
7
votes
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What case is "новых фото"?
The phrase “новых фото” is in the genitive case plural.
The whole sentence Он добавил 10 новых фото is grammatically correct, it is exactly how that should be said in Russian. But the sentence is ...
- 26.1k
6
votes
Why does the word "мужчина" decline like a feminine noun?
It doesn't decline like a feminine noun. It declines like a noun of the first declension, which includes both masculine and feminine nouns ending in -а or -я. Examples of first declension masculine ...
- 3,136
6
votes
Accepted
Почему у групповых топонимов в родительном падеже обычно нулевое окончание (Мальдив, Альп, Курил)?
Old Russian used endings -ъ, -ь for nouns with historical -o stem in gen. pl.: изъ Варягъ въ Грѣкы, изъ Грѣкъ по Днепру, святыхъ отецъ etc. This means the modern zero-ending in words like татар, армян,...
- 56k
6
votes
Accepted
Genitive ending: why тихий - тихого when хороший - хорошего?
Let's consider the group of adjectives with the stress on the stem ending with г, к, х, and ж, ш, ч, щ.
The adjectives with a stem ending in letters к, г, х, ж, ш, ч, щ have the masculine singular ...
- 21.9k
6
votes
Why is the declension of the verb is for feminine singular?
While Russian does hesitate between singular and plural with such collective nouns as ряд, большинство, меньшинство, часть, or множество, the word группа doesn't have the quasi-numeral, for lack of a ...
- 19.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Case and number of words in a label (as opposed to words in a sentence)
It's (c). "Жилых строений:" is a label and "1" is the exact quantity. Yes, genitive plural is normally used for the noun. However, the numeral is in the nominative, agreeing with the noun in gender ...
- 16.6k
6
votes
Accepted
Why does the noun слепой decline like an adjective?
There are some adjectives that have become nouns as a result of dropping the nominal part of the noun phrase. These adjectives have the semantic meaning of the noun phrase and retain the gender of the ...
- 21.9k
6
votes
Syntax of "полного сил"
You're generally correct. "Полный" usually means "overweight" but can also mean "full of".
So "Полный сил" = "Full of energy", just used in genitive in the song.
- 61
6
votes
"Как Ваш дела" vs "Как Ваши дела"
We use Ваши because it is for the plural дела. The whole phrase is in the Nominative case, just like, for example, мои друзья (мои друзья здесь), твои книги (твои книги интересные), Ваши столы (Ваши ...
- 1,685
6
votes
Accepted
What word and case is `одною` in the phrase "помещалась одною лестницей ниже"?
Whenever you're looking for the declension of a specific word, start with Wiktionary and switch to the Russian-language section. In the majority of cases, there'll be a table with declensions.
"...
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