# Моего папу



## PorFavorDama

_*Hi everyone,*_

I have a doubt about these sentences below, which one would be correct? Since I know that when we are introducing someone, we decline the object in accusative case so I think it should be like in the first one.

1- Моего папу зовут Антон.
2- Моего папе зовут Антон.

By the way could you also please tell me how we decline exceptions like дядя папа or so on, do we decline them as if they were masculine (because the meaning is masculine) or feminine according to their endings?
I assumed declining папа and дядя in feminine.

_*Thank you!*_


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## Sobakus

You assumed correctly – masculine nouns of the a-declension aren't really exceptions (almost all short names belong to it), and they decline exactly as if they were feminine. _Моего _Gen._ папе _Dat. doesn't agree in case so the two words cannot refer to each other, therefore only #1 is possible.


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## PorFavorDama

Sobakus said:


> You assumed correctly – masculine nouns of the a-declension aren't really exceptions (almost all short names belong to it), and they decline exactly as if they were feminine. _Моего _Gen._ папе _Dat. doesn't agree in case so the two words cannot refer to each other, therefore only #1 is possible.



Thank you Sobakus!

They say that internet and books are confusing for learning Russian but actually on the contrary, teachers(!) confuse me more. 

*Edit: *By the way, Did you mentioned that "_Моего _Gen.", according to that also in accusative when the noun is animate it is declined as in Genitive or something else? And also when declining the words like папа should we decline their possessive pronouns (like "_Моего _Gen.") pursuant to the gender of the word or to the gender of actually where it should have belonged to? Asking just to be sure.


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## Q-cumber

Hi It order to recognize the gender of a Russian noun, use the logical tree as follows:
A. Is the noun animate or inanimate?
B1. If inanimate -> Look at the word's ending -> If the noun ends with -a or -я , it surely belongs to the feminine gender.
B2 If animate -> Is the (a) referring  person (living creature) a male or a female? The linked pronouns, adjectives or verbs would help you to denote.
B2.1 If male -> the noun is masculine, regardless of its ending.
B2.2 If female -> the noun is feminine.

Please note that some nouns of this kind can take the both genders:
*Симпатичная судья *(a judge)* подмигнула *обвиняемому, и *отпустила *его на все четыре стОроны.
*Строгий судья погрозил *адвокату пальцем.

*Фрау Меркель *является *главой *(a leader) немецкого правительства в течение многих лет.
*Глава* секты *вымогал* деньги у прихожан.
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Some other samples of -a/я ending animate masculine nouns:
Мишка (small bear or teddy bear. Teddy bears are living creatures as believed by all children worldwide), парнишка, мальчишка, дедушка (a grandpa), дядя, слуга, юнга, юноша, братишка and so on.

P.S. Either "моего папу" or "*моему* папе" (Daive case)


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## PorFavorDama

Q-cumber said:


> Hi It order to recognize the gender of a Russian noun, use the logical tree as follows:
> A. Is the noun animate or inanimate?
> B1. If inanimate -> Look at the word's ending -> If the noun ends with -a or -я , it surely belongs to the feminine gender.
> B2 If animate -> Is the (a) referring  person (living creature) a male or a female? The linked pronouns, adjectives or verbs would help you to denote.
> B2.1 If male -> the noun is masculine, regardless of its ending.
> B2.2 If female -> the noun is feminine.
> 
> Please note that some nouns of this kind can take the both genders:
> *Симпатичная судья *(a judge)* подмигнула *обвиняемому, и *отпустила *его на все четыре стОроны.
> *Строгий судья погрозил *адвокату пальцем.
> 
> *Фрау Меркель *является *главой *(a leader) немецкого правительства в течение многих лет.
> *Глава* секты *вымогал* деньги у прихожан.
> ----------
> 
> Some other samples of -a/я ending animate masculine nouns:
> Мишка (small bear or teddy bear. Teddy bears are living creatures as believed by all children worldwide), парнишка, мальчишка, дедушка (a grandpa), дядя, слуга, юнга, юноша, братишка and so on.
> 
> P.S. Either "моего папу" or "*моему* папе" (Daive case)



So "мой папа" is also the correct form, right? Thank you so much and that tree will help me a lot! I will write it down.


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## Sobakus

PorFavorDama said:


> By the way, Did you mentioned that "_Моего _Gen.", according to that also in accusative when the noun is animate it is declined as in Genitive or something else? And also when declining the words like папа should we decline their possessive pronouns (like "_Моего _Gen.") pursuant to the gender of the word or to the gender of actually where it should have belonged to? Asking just to be sure.


Yes, any masculine animate noun that would have the same form in the Acc. as in the Nom. falls back to the Gen. so you're able to tell who's the subject and who's the object. The only declension type where you can't do that is ь-declension feminine (мать, дочь).

There's no such thing as "gender that should have been", I'm afraid.  Every word has its established gender that determines how other parts of speech agree with it, that's the whole point of gender. For the word *папа* that established gender is masculine, which means every declinable part of speech that agrees with it must be inflected for masculine gender: «моего́ па́пу», «твои́м па́пой», «два па́пы», «па́па шёл» and so on.


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## abracadabra!

So, to sum up, every noun has, so to say, two "genders".  One "gender" belongs to the other words in the sentence, the adjectives and the past tense forms of the verb: it commands them which forms they should take when they agree with the noun "in gender". The other "gender" belongs to the noun itself: it commands which form the noun itself should take when it declines in various cases and numbers. The first gender is what is called "gender" in grammars. The second gender is instead called in grammars "a type of declination" or something like that, there are three of them in our schoolbooks. (Три основных типа склонения, which implies we have also exceptions.) These types are unnamed, they are called by numbers instead. There is also sometimes a third "gender", one that belongs to the thing itself rather than to the noun that names it. Whenever it is present, it usually coincides with the first "gender" that is related to the noun.


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## PorFavorDama

Sobakus said:


> Yes, any masculine animate noun that would have the same form in the Acc. as in the Nom. falls back to the Gen. so you're able to tell who's the subject and who's the object. The only declension type where you can't do that is ь-declension feminine (мать, дочь).
> 
> There's no such thing as "gender that should have been", I'm afraid.  Every word has its established gender that determines how other parts of speech agree with it, that's the whole point of gender. For the word *папа* that established gender is masculine, which means every declinable part of speech that agrees with it must be inflected for masculine gender: «моего́ па́пу», «твои́м па́пой», «два па́пы», «па́па шёл» and so on.



Oh sorry, actually you understood what I meant by that sentence, in fact I didn't know that its established gender was masculine. So here is a new thing for me so that I will never forget this. If someone had told me that before, I wouldn't even ask this question eheh. Thank you so much, I appreciate your help.


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> So, to sum up, every noun has two genders.  One "gender" belongs to the other words in the sentence, the adjectives and the past tense forms of the verb: it commands them which forms they should take when they agree with the noun "in gender". The other "gender" belongs to the noun itself: it commands which form the noun itself should take when it declines in various cases and numbers. The first gender is what is called "gender" in grammars. The second gender is instead called in grammars "a type of declination" or something like that, there are three of them in our schoolbooks. (Три основных типа склонения, which implies we have also exceptions.) These types are unnamed, they are called by numbers instead. There is also sometimes a third "gender", one that belongs to the thing itself rather than to the noun that names it. Whenever it is present, it usually coincides with the first "gender" that is related to the noun.


I don't think it's even remotely possible to call *declension types* "genders". *Grammatical gender* determines the way the word agrees with other words. *Declension type* determines how the word is declined. The only connection between the two is that certain grammatical genders are normally reserved for certain declension types – the latter is a hint for the former. *Biological gender* is a completely separate thing again and comes into play in cases when a pronoun agrees with biological rather than with grammatical gender: «такой человек как _она/она_ – не такой человек».


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## abracadabra!

Sobakus said:


> I don't think it's even remotely possible to call *declension types* "genders".


It's possible, I did it. So, in the strict sense of the word, you're wrong.  Perhaps you meant something else? Otherwise, you just repeated what I said...
The common feature of all three things is that they have connections with "masculinity" and "femininity". So, it's useful to sort all these things up.


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## PorFavorDama

abracadabra! said:


> So, to sum up, every noun has two genders.  One "gender" belongs to the other words in the sentence, the adjectives and the past tense forms of the verb: it commands them which forms they should take when they agree with the noun "in gender". The other "gender" belongs to the noun itself: it commands which form the noun itself should take when it declines in various cases and numbers. The first gender is what is called "gender" in grammars. The second gender is instead called in grammars "a type of declination" or something like that, there are three of them in our schoolbooks. (Три основных типа склонения, which implies we have also exceptions.) These types are unnamed, they are called by numbers instead. There is also sometimes a third "gender", one that belongs to the thing itself rather than to the noun that names it. Whenever it is present, it usually coincides with the first "gender" that is related to the noun.



That was a quite nice summing up! I will also write this down as a reminder.  By the way, yes, I have seen those 3 declensions.


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> It's possible, I did it. So, in the strict sense of the word, you're wrong.  Perhaps you meant something else? Otherwise, you just repeated what I said...
> The common feature of all three things is that they have connections with "masculinity" and "femininity". So, it's useful to sort all these things up.


The way a word is declined has *zero* connection with masculinity or femininity. It only has to do with using different endings in the same grammatical roles depending on the word. I used the word "possible" to mean "possible to justify".


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## abracadabra!

Sobakus said:


> The way a word is declined has *zero* connection with masculinity or femininity.


If it were true, this thread would not come into existence in the first place.  Some correlation certainly takes place. In two of the declinsions, nouns are usually feminine. In another, they are either masculine or neuter, never feminine. There is a connection in the mind of the beholder.


> I used the word "possible" to mean "possible to justify".


Well, I did justify my chart... The basic principle of justification is to show why a name is useful...


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## Q-cumber

PorFavorDama said:


> So "мой папа" is also the correct form, right? Thank you so much and that tree will help me a lot! I will write it down.


Мой папа is fine.


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## PorFavorDama

Q-cumber said:


> Мой папа is fine.



Thank you!


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> If it were true, this thread would not come into existence in the first place.  Some correlation certainly takes place. In two of the declinsions, nouns are usually feminine. In another, they are either masculine or neuter, never feminine. There is a connection in the mind of the beholder.


But the very reason it came into existence is the author's confusion between *gender* and *declension type*. I think that if we wish to help PorFavorDama to never confuse them again, we should stress that the two concepts are completely separate. If we wanted to help connect them, we would be demonstrating that they're indeed interconnected, but that's obviously not what we want.


> Well, I did justify my chart... The basic principle of justification is to show why a name is useful...


Well, you could say there's "plural gender" and "singular gender" and put it in the same chart then. Naming things in a confusing way to put them in the same chart doesn't sound to me like a logical justification.


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## abracadabra!

@Sobakus, I actually said the same thing as you did. The wording is a matter of preference. I didn't like to separate things by calling them with different names, as I thought and still think it was more confusing; I preferred to use, just in place, the same name for the three things because the problem that caused their consideration was the same; and show the differences in explicit statements about those things that I named the same. I think the discussion which method of showing the difference is actually less confusing is not really appropriate here...


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## Sobakus

abracadabra! said:


> @Sobakus, I actually said the same thing as you did. The wording is a matter of preference. I didn't like to separate things by calling them with different names, as I thought and still think it was more confusing; I preferred to use, just in place, the same name for the three things because the problem that caused their consideration was the same; and show the differences in statements about those things that I named the same. I think the discussion which method of showing the difference is actually less confusing is not really appropriate here...


Let's just say that I think calling two things by the same name is the very practical definition of confusing, which is why I wanted to undo any possible damage this may have caused to the OP's understanding of the issue.


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## Q-cumber

I forgot to mention "the most masculine " noun - мужчина (a man).


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