# Не любил чая - Genitive



## macdevster

OK, a grammatical question.  In Akhmatova's poem "He loved three things," she writes:

Не любил чая с малиной
И женской истерики

Why is чая not in accusative?  Is it in genitive?  Is this because it was something NOT loved?  

And женской истерики -- did he not love feminine hysterics?  Or did he not love tea with feminine hysterics (nor with rasberries, for that matter)?  Is "женской истерики" in instrumental case then?

Thanks in advance for your help.


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## Orlin

Here we have a transitive verb with negation - in such cases the object is normally in the genitive. Here both objects of "не любил" are in the genitive case.


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## Natalisha

macdevster said:


> And женской истерики -- did he not love feminine hysterics?


Yes.


> Or did he not love tea with feminine hysterics (nor with rasberries, for that matter)?


No, if she had meant "with feminine hysterics" it would be "с женской истерик*ой*".


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## morzh

macdevster said:


> OK, a grammatical question.  In Akhmatova's poem "He loved three things," she writes:
> 
> Не любил чая с малиной
> И женской истерики
> 
> Why is чая not in accusative?  Is it in genitive?  Is this because it was something NOT loved?
> 
> And женской истерики -- did he not love feminine hysterics?  Or did he not love tea with feminine hysterics (nor with rasberries, for that matter)?  Is "женской истерики" in instrumental case then?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help.



It is (using math notation ) "не любил (чая с малиной) + не любил (женской истерики)".
That is "did not like (tea with raspberries + did not like (feminine tantrums)".

If it was "with" it would be "did not like (tea with raspberries + feminine tantrums)"

Both are in Genitive.

As for why Genitive: both acc. and gen. sometimes can be used with "не люблю".
Acc. is typically used with "люблю".

Люблю быструю езду (love fast driving) - accus.
Не люблю быструю езду / быстрой езды. - acc/gen


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## Orlin

natalisha said:


> yes.
> 
> No, if she had meant "with feminine hysterics" it would have been "с женской истерик*ой*".


Это очень элементарно, но к сожалению я его не заметил, когда писал об идентичности форм.


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## macdevster

Ah, OK, this makes sense to me now.  I have to admit, I don't remember the use of genitive with negated transitive verbs.  Eek.  Would genitive be used in common spoken language if someone said "He didn't love tea when he was a child," for example?


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## morzh

macdevster said:


> Ah, OK, this makes sense to me now.  I have to admit, I don't remember the use of genitive with negated transitive verbs.  Eek.  Would genitive be used in common spoken language if someone said "He didn't love tea when he was a child," for example?




It is personal usage preferences.

Normally a person says "Не люблю я водку" (I don't like vodka).
But one can say "Не люблю я водки". It is somewhat less common, but is OK to use. May be is a little old-fashioned too.

I also think (I may be wrong but...) it is usually the case with objects that cannot be itemized/singled out/counted (water, substance, beverage, food). In case of countables - "table, car, chair" in singular form
I think it is always accusative.

Also notice, that in case of "animate" objects there is no such difference, it is the same for both "pos/neg".

Animate:
Я люблю её(его) / Я не люблю её(его)
Я люблю соседа(соседку)/ Я не люблю соседа(соседку).

Inanimate countable singular:
Я люблю эту машину/Я не люблю эту машину
Я люблю этот стул/я не люблю этот стул.

Inanimate (substances, beverages etc)
Я люблю траву / я не люблю траву/травы
Я люблю чай / я не люблю чай/чая
Я люблю табак / я не люблю табак/табака
Я люблю дерево (as a material, not a tree) / я не люблю дерево/дерева.


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## Wertis

macdevster said:


> OK, a grammatical question.  In Akhmatova's poem "He loved three things," she writes:
> 
> Не любил чая с малиной
> И женской истерики
> 
> Why is чая not in accusative?  Is it in genitive?  Is this because it was something NOT loved?
> 
> And женской истерики -- did he not love feminine hysterics?  Or did he not love tea with feminine hysterics (nor with rasberries, for that matter)?  Is "женской истерики" in instrumental case then?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help.



I'm not an expert in poems and I must admit I've never read Akmatova's brilliant poems, though she is one of the most renowned poets in Russia and a lot of people are real admirers of her great works. 

In my opinion "Не любил чая с малиной" isn't correct from the point of contemporary Russian language. I think we don't say it this way. Instead I would suggest "Не любил чаЙ с малиной". Notice that I've changed the last letter in the word meaning "tea" in Russian. I don't claim that I'm right, because I might not know some nuisances, but my intuition tells me that the phrase should be as I've offered. The meaning is clear from both sentences, but the second phrase sounds better to me. In English it would be "He didn't like tea with raspberries". The second part "И женской истерики" is OK and translates "he didn't like feminine hysterics". So he didn't like both. Neither tea nor feminine hysterics and that's what this short extract says.


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## Artiom

*Wertis*: ..."Не любил чая с малиной" isn't correct from the point of contemporary Russian language.

It certainly *is* correct, although I agree with Wertis that e.g. "Я не люблю молока" doesn't sound like a regular phrase.

But "*Хочешь молока?*" sounds way more natural, and way more Russian, than "*Хочешь молоко?*".

 Let's take "*Не любил он и своих денег*" and "*Не любил он и свои деньги*" for example. The first example actually follows the pattern of the initial Akhmatova's quote and both sound natural.

But the subtlety of correctness is really astonishing. I should surely take it into account dealing with English


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## morzh

Artiom said:


> *Wertis*: ..."Не любил чая с малиной" isn't correct from the point of contemporary Russian language.
> 
> It certainly *is* correct, although I agree with Wertis that e.g. "Я не люблю молока" doesn't sound like a regular phrase.
> 
> But "*Хочешь молока?*" sounds way more natural, and way more Russian, than "*Хочешь молоко?*".
> 
> Let's take "*Не любил он и своих денег*" and "*Не любил он и свои деньги*" for example. The first example actually follows the pattern of the initial Akhmatova's quote and both sound natural.
> 
> But the subtlety of correctness is really astonishing. I should surely take it into account dealing with English



Хочешь Молоко/Молока - партитивньiй падеж. 
Вроде "Налей чай/чаю".

Но я не уверен, что то же самое можно отнести к "женской истерике" и "своим деньгам". To же самое с чаем с малиной - здесь я так же не уверен, что действует партитив. Поетому с "молоком" - я думаю, пример неудачньiй - другой механизм, просто следтствия похожи.


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## Artiom

Morzh, да, тут уж моя неграмотность просто - спасибо. Я, честно говоря, ожидал, что тут может быть что-то не то, но вот не сдержался.

So, the молоко-example is being canceled as it cannot serve as an explanation (being of course grammatically correct) - the grammatical correspondence between "*...любил...*" and "*..хочешь..*" is said to be unreasonable.


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## jamtland76

Hello,
my daily trouble (one of many) concerns direct object in negative phrases and I'd prefer to continue here.
I understand that using "не люблю" + accusative or genitive (like suggested by my textbook) may be interchangeable but accusative seems sound more natural nowadays. 
But is that common also for other verbs? I'm looking on google for some easy phrases and it seems to me that only accusative is used.

For example, how would you say "My son doesn't drink milk" ?

1) мой сын не пьет молоко
2) мой сын не пьет молока


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## morzh

Either way is OK, I think.

Many people will use acc. (не пьет молоко). And it is correct.
Then there is genitive; people also use that, and the well-known nursery rhyme about a she-goat uses exactly that.

Идет коза рогатая
За малыми ребятами....
...
Кто *каши* не ест, кто *молока* не пьет - 
Забодает-забодает.....

As you can see, both "каша" and "молоко" are in Genitive. (who doesn't eat porridge, who doesn't drink milk).


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## Wertis

jamtland76 said:


> Hello,
> my daily trouble (one of many) concerns direct object in negative phrases and I'd prefer to continue here.
> I understand that using "не люблю" + accusative or genitive (like suggested by my textbook) may be interchangeable but accusative seems sound more natural nowadays.
> But is that common also for other verbs? I'm looking on google for some easy phrases and it seems to me that only accusative is used.
> 
> For example, how would you say "My son doesn't drink milk" ?
> 
> 1) мой сын не пьет молоко
> 2) мой сын не пьет молока



I don't really know which option is grammatically correct. Probably only one of them - either the first or the second. Probably both. However I assure you that both #1 and #2 will work in speech. I'd prefer #1, but that's just explained by the way I'm used to saying such things. Very often we do say things that are wrong if one is strict, but that sound more natural. Perhaps here we have one of such cases because some people might say #2 is correct and #1 is not. I repeat that in colloquial Russian you don't always have to deeply think whether a phrase is grammatically correct or not. Very often when you don't pay enough attention to rigo(u)r, you make your phrase more understandable.

Note that in formal writing I would choose #1 as well.


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## Wertis

morzh said:


> Идет коза рогатая
> За малыми ребятами....
> ...
> Кто *каши* не ест, кто *молока* не пьет -
> Забодает-забодает.....



 This jocular patter is often said to children who refuse to eat when their parents or someone else responsible for them wants them to. I remember it as being slightly different from what morzh has written, but there are many modifications I can be unfamiliar with. 

"Кто *каши* не ест, кто *молока* не пьет - "

is in the original, but 

"Кто *кашу* не ест, кто *молоко* не пьет - "

would also be fine. I can't say that I like one more than the other. To me they both seem acceptable.


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## carsten

I agree with Wertis, я не люблю чая sounds a bit awkward in contemporary Russian. I think it MIGHT sound awkward back in Akmetova times too, but nevertheless, you can see that it could be intentional if you read the whole poem.

The rule "negative transitive verbs use genitive" is simplified and incomplete. Genitive is used when dealing with partitive semantics (which just happens to coincide with negation in some usage patterns) which results in a subtle difference between the two forms when dealing with uncountable nouns and любить. I guess the form was put intentionally, so the difference could be like this:

Не любил чай He didn't like tea in general, while
Не любил чая He didn't like "someone's particular" tea (PARTitive)

I.e. the message could be "he didn't like [my] raspberry tea [I offered him] and he didn't like [my] feminine hysterics" since the poem ends with the line "And I was his wife."

Or it's just me


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## Wertis

carsten said:


> Не любил чай He didn't like tea in general, while
> Не любил чая He didn't like "someone's particular" tea (PARTitive)



Well, that's an interesting point, but still I wouldn't use "чая" in sentence #2 because I don't really like this word ("чая"). This word, however, is still used very often, but I cannot say whether it's right or wrong grammatically. I express my opinion here with the help of intuition.

If we are speaking about some particular type of tea it's possible to say "чай":

Я люблю *чай*, который ты готовишь из смеси красной смотродины, клубники и малины - I like tea that you make from red currants, strawberries, and raspberries


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## MaRussKa

"не любил чая с малиной " sounds very poetical.. its like deliberate speculation, recalling the details...  in my mind it sounds very slowly and thoughtful..
i myself would say
В детстве я не любила чай с малиной.
Будучи молодой матерью, она не любила детских истерик.


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