# Люди не хотят этой войны/ люди не хотят эту войну



## Gabriele8512

Всем здравствуйте!

Какое предложение - правильно?

1) Мне кажется, что люди не хотят этой войны
2) Мне кажется, что люди не хотят эту войну

Всем спасибо


Г.


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## Alabarna

1 is right. 2 sounds rather awkward; no Russian would say that.


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## MIDAV

Я бы добавил, что можно обойтись без "что" - в смысле, будет звучать более аутентично. Ну и я бы заменил _люди _на _народ_, хотя это уже не вопрос грамматики наверно.


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## YuliaPopenko

The second one is much better, but both are grammatically correct. Хотеть goes with accusative case, that is the most common situation. Sometimes verbs like Хотеть may be used with genitive case, when we talk about something not defined. For example
Люди не хотят войны - not this particular war, but war in general.
In your sentence we talk about this particulr war. So the best way to say it is Люди не хотят эту войну. 
Why is that so? Because when you don't want something you can kind of say - I want NO war - and you get genitive.


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## Alabarna

YuliaPopenko said:


> So the best way to say it is Люди не хотят эту войну. That is for sure


No.


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## YuliaPopenko

Alabarna said:


> Poppycock.


May be you could prove it by giving some grammatical explanation of your answer


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## YuliaPopenko

P.S. Some additional information with examples, since some people don't agree with me.
Я не хочу эту машину - I don't want THIS car. No one will say - Я не хочу этой машины. 
Я не хочу этот чай. - Possible to say - Я не хочу этого чая, but fewer people will use this form.  Я не хочу чая - I don't want tea at all (genitive)
Like I said - этой войны and эту войну are both possible. To me - эту войну sounds more appropriate and closer to rules.

Using some verbs (that usually go with accusative) with genitive depends on many things.
Я купил хлеб (I bought bread) vs Я купил хлеба (I bought some bread) - "some" is meant. But we don't say Я купил килограмм яблок (килограмм will never be used in this sentence in genitive case, which means that genitive case refers to a certain quantity that is no mentioned).


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## Awwal12

YuliaPopenko said:


> The second one is much better, but both are grammatically correct. Хотеть goes with accusative case, that is the most common situation. Sometimes verbs like Хотеть may be used with genitive case, when we talk about something not defined. For example
> Люди не хотят войны - not this particular war, but war in general.


A remarkable combination of generally good knowledge of the rules and an absolutely non-existent feeling of the language.


YuliaPopenko said:


> Я купил хлеб (I bought bread) vs Я купил хлеба (I bought some bread) - "some" is meant.


The general choice of the case for uncountable nouns doesn't have much to do with the choice of the case in other constructions in the first place.

With "хотеть" the choice strongly depends on the precise semantics of the verb.  "Want sth to occur" requires genitive even in positive sentences with both countable and uncountable nouns, referential/definite or not (хотеть этой войны, хотеть наступления весны etc.).

Ruscorpora.ru contains 7 examples for "хотеть" + "этот" (f, gen) + "война"; in the results the verb appears both negated and non-negated. At the same time, it has zero examples for "хотеть" + "этот" (f, acc) + "война".


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## gvozd

I think logic doesn't work in this case. "Мы не хотим эту войну" grates on my ears, it sounds highly unnatural. I haven't been able to find any examples of such usage on the Internet.


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## Awwal12

gvozd said:


> I think logic doesn't work in this case.


Logic always works. Understanding it is another matter.


gvozd said:


> "Мы не хотим эту войну" grates on my ears,


Should be the same for the absolute majority of native speakers, frankly.


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## MIDAV

_Я не хочу эту кашу. Я не хочу эту машину. Я не хочу эту головную боль_. Try using any of these with genitive in any sort of every day setting. How is that different from _Я не хочу эту войну_?


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## Awwal12

MIDAV said:


> _Я не хочу эту кашу. Я не хочу эту машину. Я не хочу эту головную боль_. Try using any of these with genitive in any sort of every day setting. How is that different from _Я не хочу эту войну_?


In fact, "я не хочу эту головную боль" works only in the meaning "I don't want to have this object which is going to give me a headache". Which is quite telling. The difference is in the underlying verb (causing the differences in the government model): one is "хотеть" = "to want/wish sth to happen"; the other is "хотеть" = "to want to own or consume sth".


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## MIDAV

Awwal12 said:


> In fact, "я не хочу эту головную боль" works only in the meaning "I don't want to have this object which is going to give me a headache". Which is quite telling. The difference is in the underlying verb (causing the differences in the government model): one is "хотеть" = "to want/wish sth to happen"; the other is "хотеть" = "to want to own or consume sth".


I would agree with that except it can be used in a lot of different scenarios. Assuming for example it's part of a conversation between TV/Internet content producers, and the _люди _in question are viewers – it would only be natural that they would use accusative in that very sentence:

_Мне кажется, люди не хотят эту войну (потому что им уже надоело)_

 In general, I would say the less formal the setting, the more likely you are to hear accusative here.


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## Awwal12

MIDAV said:


> Assuming for example it's part of a conversation between TV/Internet content producers, and the _люди _in question are viewers – it would only be natural that they would use accusative in that very sentence:


Meaning "they don't want to watch the content related to this war", yes. Something highly contextual. In the normal sense, however, I wouldn't expect anything but the genitive case in this sentence.


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## pimlicodude

Awwal12 said:


> In fact, "я не хочу эту головную боль" works only in the meaning "I don't want to have this object which is going to give me a headache". Which is quite telling. The difference is in the underlying verb (causing the differences in the government model): one is "хотеть" = "to want/wish sth to happen"; the other is "хотеть" = "to want to own or consume sth".


Very informative. I wasn't aware of this, or at least as precisely formulated.


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## nizzebro

MIDAV said:


> _Я не хочу эту кашу. Я не хочу эту машину. Я не хочу эту головную боль_. Try using any of these with genitive in any sort of every day setting. How is that different from _Я не хочу эту войну_?


_Я не хочу эту кашу = Я не хочу есть эту кашу (childish)
Я не хочу эту машину. = Я не хочу покупать эту кашу (childish)
Я не хочу эту головную боль_.  = _Я не хочу иметь эту головную боль (childish and/or derussified as influenced by English syntax) = Мне не нужна (эта) головная боль (adult Russian; эта боль would mean that problem which I see as 'headache')
Я не хочу эту войну = ? (imbecile; sounds as if "не хочу эту войну, - дайте другую, в горошек")_

Besides that, "_эта _война" itself creates inconsistency. Once the topic is the current war, it is a state of affairs, actually a process, so the noun is essentially same thing as a deverbal one. As an individual  thing-in-itself, 'война' could be consistent when it is completed or considered such. "Я не хочу войны" means I don't want it as a state, not as a particular 'cup of tea'.


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## pimlicodude

YuliaPopenko said:


> P.S. Some additional information with examples, since some people don't agree with me.
> Я не хочу эту машину - I don't want THIS car. No one will say - Я не хочу этой машины.
> Я не хочу этот чай. - Possible to say - Я не хочу этого чая, but fewer people will use this form.  Я не хочу чая - I don't want tea at all (genitive)
> Like I said - этой войны and эту войну are both possible. To me - эту войну sounds more appropriate and closer to rules.
> 
> Using some verbs (that usually go with accusative) with genitive depends on many things.
> Я купил хлеб (I bought bread) vs Я купил хлеба (I bought some bread) - "some" is meant. But we don't say Я купил килограмм яблок (килограмм will never be used in this sentence in genitive case, which means that genitive case refers to a certain quantity that is no mentioned).


I think genitive after negation and the partitive genitive are conceptually two different things and not the same thing. But I was taught жду автобус meant "I'm waiting for the (particular) bus" and жду автобуса meant "I'm waiting for a (=any) bus". Derek Offord (an English professor of Russian) in his Modern Russian explains that the situation is somewhat confused even among native speakers when it comes to genitive after negation, but does offer some rules of thumb along the lines of what Yulia writes here (i.e. that the indefinite sense of "a war" would require genitive after negation in не хочу войны). But as for я не хочу чая, what about the partitive? Я не хочу чаю. Offord in the same book recommends ignoring the morphologically distinct partitive apart from two phrases (стакан чаю and много народу; the calcified uses like без году неделя are a separate matter, and not truly partitive). But I think you could have чаю here anyway, even if the partitive is declining in use in the Russian language. Or чайку.


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> t I was taught жду автобус meant "I'm waiting for the (particular) bus" and жду автобуса meant "I'm waiting for a (=any) bus".


The latter might mean  the particular bus as well; it is just a variation/deviation which could provide a sense like 'appearance *of (*a*/*the) bus'. E.g. "Мне всё так надоело, что я просто жду своего автобуса, чтобы поскорее уехать домой". - while  "свой автобус" would be fine in a more neutral sentence with creating a  restrictive sense, singling out only the bus as 'mine' - as the comment in the informational structure.


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