Thread: как пройти на улицу арбат? Is арбат like an adjective here?

This sentence is from my Assimil Russian Book:-
простите, как пройти на улицу арбат?
I notice арбат has not changed from it's nominative form. Is that because it is functioning as an accusative adjective here?

It's explained here: 72 Apposition in the names of publications, towns etc. (page 97)

in this grammar book: http://www.ipages.am/files/companies...%20Grammar.pdf

That's a very useful download, thanks.

Although it doesn't specifically mention street names, from what I can gather both parts of this street name are nouns and should take the same case, so 'арбат' is simply in its accusative form here? I'm not sure now where I got the idea from that it might be an adjective.

Originally Posted by grafrich

This sentence is from my Assimil Russian Book:-
простите, как пройти на улицу арбат?
I notice арбат has not changed from it's nominative form. Is that because it is functioning as an accusative adjective here?

Technically, "Арбат" is in the nominative here -- but since it's masculine and inanimate, the nominative and accusative forms are identical. Here are different examples to make more clear what's going on grammatically:

Мы идём в ресторан "Тайландская Богиня", который находится на улице Арбат.
Автобус доехал до улицы Арбат.

BUT

Мы идём в "Тайландскую Богиню", которая находится на Арбате.
Автобус доехал до Арбата.

Got that? When you actually use generic nouns such as "restaurant" or "street," the specific name ("Thai Goddess" or "Arbat") can stay in the nominative. But if you leave out the generic noun, the specific name should go into the appropriate case -- accusative, locative, genitive, or whatever.

On the other hand, with street names that decline like adjectives rather than nouns, the name will usually go into the appropriate case whether you use the generic noun "street" or not: на улицу Тверскую (or simply "на Тверскую"), на улице Тверской ("на Тверской"), etc. On the third hand, I doubt any native speaker would consider it a major error to say "на улицу «Тверская»" (i.e., with "street" in the accusative but leaving the specific name in the nominative), especially if you put quote marks around the nominative form -- but I would avoid "на Тверская".

P.S. Moscow, of course, has TWO Arbat Streets -- "Арбат" and "Новый Арбат". The adjective "Новый" should be capitalized and always goes in the same case as the noun "Арбат"; hence, the locative construction would be either "на улице Новый Арбат" or "на Новом Арбате".

Originally Posted by grafrich

That's a very useful download, thanks.

I second that! Excellent reference source, with clear English explanations and lots of Russian usage examples.

Thanks Robert.

So I was wrong about Arbat being in the accusative because of being in apposition to another noun... I only got it 'right' by chance as the declension is the same as the nominative!

And this is because of the exceptional case of 'street' being a generic noun, is that correct?

If it's not too much trouble, how will I know which street names decline like adjectives? Are they ones named for (after) other places and people?

Yes, but you don't need to learn so deeply, just remember -ая ending. Most undeground stations have such names, so you could examine for example:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1...B5%D0%BD%D0%B0

Like maxmixiv says, if the name of the street (or Metro station) ends in "-ая," it's most likely an adjective, and it should agree in case with the noun улица/станция. If the name ends in anything other than "-ая," you can generally follow the pattern I gave for "Арбат" above.

For instance, the name of the street "улица 1905 года" (which is pronounced as улица тысяча девятьсот пятого года) is technically in the genitive singular (following the normal rules for ordinal numbers), but you can treat the entire phrase "тысяча девятьсот пятого года" as though it were a one-word noun like "Арбат" -- in other words, it doesn't change cases to agree with улица.

Thanks both. So, look for a nominative adjective ending, means it's probably going to decline like an adjective. Perfectly sensible! I'm just starting on numbers and counting things...

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Like maxmixiv says, if the name of the street (or Metro station) ends in "-ая," it's most likely an adjective, and it should agree in case with the noun улица/станция. If the name ends in anything other than "-ая," you can generally follow the pattern I gave for "Арбат" above.

For instance, the name of the street "улица 1905 года" (which is pronounced as улица тысяча девятьсот пятого года) is technically in the genitive singular (following the normal rules for ordinal numbers)

It's in genitive because it is grammaticcaly aggreed with an implied "имени". Compare with: "Улица [имени] Циолковского", "Площадь [имени] Гагарина".