# animate neuter nouns



## CapnPrep

According to Wikipedia, the accusative case ending of neuter singular adjectives in Russian depends on the animate/inanimate distinction (just as for masculine singular nouns and adjectives: animate accusative = genitive, inanimate accusative = nominative).

Could somebody illustrate this for me using an animate neuter adjective + noun combination?


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## Q-cumber

*CapnPrep*
If I got it right, the samples would be:
Masculine gender:
"Я вижу *белый* снег". ("a snow" - inanimate) , but "Я вижу *белого* кролика" ("a rabbit" - animate).
_I see a white snow vs I see a white rabbit_
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Я слышу *сильный* шум. ("a noise" - inanimate), but "Я слышу*сильного* тигра" ("a tiger" - animate) 

_I hear a strong noise. vs I hear a strong tiger._
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Я кидаю *красивый* камень.  ("a stone" - inanimate), but "Я кидаю *красивого* пса". ("пёс" - "a male dog" - animate).
_I throw a nice stone vs I throw a nice dog_

*Neutral gender:*
Ты видишь *белое* пятно  ("a spot" - inanimate) , but  Ты видишь (-ого ???) Russian-speakers, help me please!!! -ого 

Does this give you an idea?


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## cyanista

Q-cumber said:


> *CapnPrep*
> If I got it right, the samples would be:
> 
> Я вижу *белый* снег. ("snow" - inanimate) , but I вижу *белого* кролика ("rabbit" - animate)


You got it right, except for one thing: снег and кролик are masculine, not neuter.  
EDIT: Afterwards Q-cumber added a few more examples to his post.

What Wikipedia states is wrong. To my knowledge, all neuter nouns and adjectives always have a "nominative" ending in the accusative.

Я вижу зеленое поле.(inanimate) 
Я вижу странное насекомое.(animate)


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## CapnPrep

I guess that насекомое is an adjectival form. Are there any names of animals/people that are "real" neuter nouns (end in "-о" or "-е" in the nominative singular, and "-а" in the genitive singular)?

Perhaps the Wikipedia rule is correct for _indeclinable_ animate neuter nouns? (But then it may be hard to tell if they're neuter or masculine.)


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> *CapnPrep*
> If I got it right, the samples would be:
> 
> Я вижу *белый* снег. ("snow" - inanimate) , but I вижу *белого* кролика ("rabbit" - animate)


 
But unfortunately sometimes you can't use any rule to decide what kind of accusative is applicable - it depends on the customary usage:

Я вижу покойника, мертвеца, кадавра ("animated").
but
Я вижу труп.

Я вижу вирус.
but
Я вижу микроба, макрофага, бактерию ("animated").


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## Maroseika

CapnPrep said:


> I guess that насекомое is an adjectival form. Are there any names of animals/people that are "real" neuter nouns (end in "-о" or "-е" in the nominative singular, and "-а" in the genitive singular)?
> 
> Perhaps the Wikipedia rule is correct for _indeclinable_ animate neuter nouns? (But then it may be hard to tell if they're neuter or masculine.)


I can't imagine any.
But for example старичьё, дурачьё are declined like unanimated nouns.

By the way, we may use another way - figurative nouns. If we use unanimated masculine noun figuratively and with reference to a person, we still use it as animated:
Ты - полный дуб (глупый).
Я вижу в твоём лице полного дуба.
But nothing like that if it is neuter:
Ты - полное барахло (никчёмный человек).
Я вижу перед собою полное барахло.

We may conclude from this that neuter nouns are declined independently on the animation.


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## cyanista

CapnPrep said:


> I guess that насекомое is an adjectival form. Are there any names of animals/people that are "real" neuter nouns (end in "-о" or "-е" in the nominative singular, and "-а" in the genitive singular)?


Animate neuter nouns I can think of right now: дитя, создание, существо, чудовище.



> Perhaps the Wikipedia rule is correct for _indeclinable_ animate neuter nouns? (But then it may be hard to tell if they're neuter or masculine.)


How do you mean??? Indeclinable nouns are not declined at all!


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> But unfortunately sometimes you can't use any rule to decide what kind of accusative is applicable - it depends on the customary usage:
> 
> Я вижу покойника, мертвеца, кадавра ("animated").
> but
> Я вижу труп.
> 
> Я вижу вирус.
> but
> Я вижу микроба, макрофага, бактерию ("animated").



This rule isn't absolute, indeed. However, the words "покойник" and "мертвец" are usually treated in Russian as (ex)animated.  "Бактерия" is of feminine gender, thus
the rule isn't applicable here. Not sure about "вирус", I think we can easily say "вижу вируса", provided I got a powerful microscope.


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## cajzl

Once I read that there is a general rule for all IE languages:

All accusative neuter forms are identical with the nominative ones.  It is true for all numbers (singular, dual, plural) and for all declinable parts of speech.

It works for Latin, Greek, Czech, ... 
I doubt that the Russian language is an exception.

BTW, in Czech the inanimate masculine forms conform this rule as well.


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> We may conclude from this that neuter nouns are declined independently on the animation.



I am also confused with this.  According to the rule meantioned it should end with "-ого" in an "animated case".


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## CapnPrep

cajzl said:


> All accusative neuter forms are identical with the nominative ones.  It is true for all numbers (singular, dual, plural) and for all declinable parts of speech.


Right; that's what made me suspicious of the Wikipedia article in the first place. However, the IE nominative-accusative law is probably violated anyway for Russian _plurals_, because there I believe that it _is_ true that the accusative form looks like the genitive form for animate nouns (even neuter nouns).  

ex.: Я вижу странных насекомых or Я вижу странные насекомые?



			
				cyanista said:
			
		

> How do you mean??? Indeclinable nouns are not declined at all!


But I am wondering about the form of the _adjectives_ that accompany them. I am pretty sure that it would be strange to combine a genitive-like "-ого" adjective with a nominative-like "-о/-е" noun to form an animate accusative noun phrase (this is what the Wikipedia rules would suggest). But then maybe it wouldn't be so strange if the noun was indeclinable anyway.



> Animate neuter nouns I can think of right now: дитя, создание, существо, чудовище.


I don't know these words, but can I ask how you form the accusative case (with a preceding adjective, singular and plural)?


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## cyanista

CapnPrep said:


> But I am wondering about the form of the _adjectives_ that accompany them. I am pretty sure that it would be strange to combine a genitive-like "-ого" adjective with a nominative-like "-о/-е" noun to form an animate accusative noun phrase (this is what the Wikipedia rules would suggest). But then maybe it wouldn't be so strange if the noun was indeclinable anyway.


I've just looked it up and there are no animate indeclinable nouns in Russian that would be neuter. Click



> I don't know these words, but can I ask how you form the accusative case (with a preceding adjective, singular and plural)?


Oh my god!  It's getting complicated with plural! I think it is:
Sg__________________________Pl
Я вижу странное насекомое.   - Я вижу странных насекомых.

Я вижу юное создание.  - Я вижу юные создания/юных созданий.

Я вижу живое существо.  - Я вижу живые существа/живых существ.

Я вижу страшное чудовище.  - Я вижу страшных чудовищ.

So it's a "genitive" ending in plural after all. Создание and существо (both mean being, creature) are probably ambivalent, so they can take both cases. That's the best I can come up with so far.


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## CapnPrep

That's great! "чудовище" is the perfect example.

So I think the following two rules are valid, and they take care of all neuter nouns (and some others).
 For all neuter nouns (and adjectives): accusative = nominative in the singular.
 For all plural nouns (and adjectives): accusative = genitive (animate), accusative = nominative (inanimate).
Of course there might be some hesitation about the animate/inanimate status of particular nouns in particular contexts.

Thanks for your help, everyone! This was a very interesting discussion.


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## cajzl

> However, the IE nominative-accusative law is probably violated anyway for Russian _plurals_, because there I believe that it _is_ true that the accusative form looks like the genitive form for animate nouns (even neuter nouns).


Many Slavic languages often use the genitive case for the object of a sentence. It does not necessarily mean that the accusative form = the genitive one_. _


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## cajzl

as for _Я вижу страшных чудовищ._

_"страшных чудовищ" _is the accusative plural form only if this form is used in *all* situations in which the accusative is required (for example after preposions).


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## cyanista

cajzl said:


> Many Slavic languages often use the genitive case for the object of a sentence. It does not necessarily mean that the accusative form = the genitive one_. _
> 
> Inthe sentence _Я вижу живые существа/живых существ._
> 
> _живые существа - _acc. plur. (= nom. plur. according to the law)
> _живых существ - gen. plur.
> 
> _



You might be right, or perhaps there are two ways of looking at it. I'm not a Slavist and my knowledge doesn't suffice in this case.


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## CapnPrep

cajzl said:


> as for _Я вижу страшных чудовищ._
> 
> _"страшных чудовищ" _is the accusative plural form only if this form is used in *all* situations in which the accusative is required (for example after preposions).


OK, we can take an accusative-only preposition like про or через:через/про страшных чудовищ or через/про страшные чудовища?​[I think most people would agree that the direct object of a transitive verb like видеть (without negation) is in the accusative case. Otherwise, we would have to say that transitive verbs sometimes combine with a genitive object, and sometimes an accusative (or nominative???) one.]

[Edit: OK, you are right, there could be reasons (indefiniteness, partitivity) for putting a genitive object in an accusative context, but then this would normally apply to both animates and inanimates. The prepositional context is (hopefully) more reliable.]


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## cajzl

In Czech the direct object is either in the accusative case or in the genitive case (in terms of the syntax it is the partitive genitive). The meaning is (slightly) different.

*Kup chléb* (acc.) or *chleba* (gen.). Buy bread./Buy some bread.

It is like in French: *le pain* vs. *du pain*

But after prepostions we always use the proper case.


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## Maroseika

cajzl said:


> In Czech the direct object is either in the accusative case or in the genitive case (in terms of the syntax it is the partitive genitive). The meaning is (slightly) different.
> 
> *Kup chléb* (acc.) or *chleba* (gen.). Buy bread./Buy some bread.


Quite the same system is in Russian, however "partitive" sense in the case of genitive usually is not felt and is not accounted by the natives.


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## Q-cumber

I've found this article about animate / inanimate nouns in Russian.

*Maroseika*

By the way, all the samples you provided are mentioned there. 


> Некоторые имена существительные, не обозначающие живых существ, по грамматическим свойствам входят в разряд одушевленных: 1) слова мертвец, покойник (но не труп); 2) названия мифических, никогда не имевших места в реальной действительности существ типа леший, русалка; <кадавр> 3) названия фигур в некоторых играх: ферзь, туз, валет, козырь, шар; 4) обозначения кукол: матрешка, кукла.





> Слова вирус, микроб, бактерия могут быть то одушевленными, то неодушевленными: изучать вирусов, микробов, бактерий и вирусы, микробы, бактерии; языковое сознание как бы колеблется, следует ли относить эти микроорганизмы к живым существам.



And this confirms *cyanista*'s conclusion that Wikipedia's rule was false: 


> У существительных* среднего *и женского рода одушевленность ~ неодушевленность *в форме единственного числа не выражена*.



PS I wonder, how can we ever talk Russian without knowing (remembering) all these complicated rules...


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## CapnPrep

I updated the Wikipedia page in light of the information provided here. Further verification and contributions are very welcome. I notice that the same incorrect information about the neuter can be found in various places in the Wikibooks materials for learning Russian (in case anyone feels like making some changes there).

I think examples like the following may convince cajzl and others that we are dealing with a genuine accusative noun phrase, even after verbs:Я вижу того молодого мужчину.​This cannot be a genitive object, given the inflection of the noun (and no partitive interpretation is possible here, I guess).

So the rule could be stated as follows:The animate/inanimate distinction is relevant for determining the accusative case form of the following words:
singular masculine nouns that are not part of the "-а/-я" declension class
all adjectives referring to any masculine singular noun
all nouns and adjectives in the plural


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## Maroseika

CapnPrep said:


> Я вижу того молодого мужчину.​This cannot be a genitive object, given the inflection of the noun (and no partitive interpretation is possible here, I guess).
> ​



Sure, it is not. Partitive would be:
Отрежьте мне вон того элегантного мужчины, пожалуйста.​


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