Thread: Can't figure out the case of "shoes" here

I'm teaching myself grammar rules from the book "Teach Yourself Russian Grammar" and finding it extremely helpful. However, I've hit an exception I can't quite deconstruct, no doubt one of you can guide me through. Please correct me if any of my thinking below is wrong!

A single shoe is Туфля, so a pair of shoes is Туфли (nominative plural).

На женщине туфли - On woman shoes. "Woman" is prepositional singular because we're using "На".

На мужчние нет туфель - On man (prep sing) not shoes.

Here's where I'm stuck - I have no idea what case "shoes" is, so I don't understand the construction of туфли / туфель. I'm guessing the case is different in the two examples because of "нет", but that still doesn't get me anywhere.

Thanks,
Lindsay

Lindsay -- one of the important functions of the genitive case in Russian (whether singular or plural) is to indicate the ABSENCE or NON-EXISTENCE of something.

Thus, туфель is genitive plural, indicating that the man ain't got no shoes, while туфли is nominative plural, because there are shoes on the woman.

Other examples of the genitive being used to show that something is absent, or doesn't exist at all:

У меня нет собаки. = By me there is not a dog. = I don't have a dog. -- собаки = gen. sg. of собака (fem.)
У нашего друга не было сахара. = By our friend there was no sugar. = Our friend was all out of sugar. -- сахара = gen. sg. of сахар_ (mas.)

If the man had his left shoe, but was missing his right shoe, then you could say (following the pattern of the examples you gave):

На мужчине левая туфля, но правой туфли нет.

Here, the adjective "left" and the noun "shoe" go in the nominative singular (because they're THERE), but the "right shoe" is in the genitive singular (both the adj. and the noun), because it -- isn't.

Perfect, thanks Throbert. In my notes about Genitive case I'd noted that it was about quantities, and even written (a lot, a bottle, not any) afterwards. It just didn't occur to me that "not shoes" could be thought of as a quantity. It makes perfect sense now.

Honestly, I'd be totally lost without these forums

Thanks,
Lindsay

P.S. And just to give you a preview of things you'll be learning in the future, I would venture to say that there are maybe 4 really crucial and major functions of the Russian genitive:

(1) possession
(2) absence or non-existence
(3) part of something consumable ("a bit of tea"; "some of the bread")
(4) separation or movement away from

The genitive can cover other concepts, but the above four are probably the most important ones.

And some linguists argue that the real underlying meaning of the Russian genitive is (4) "separation; movement away", and each of the other three are "special cases of separation" -- thus (1) is "an owned object considered separately from its owner"; (2) is "separated from the category of things that exist"; and (3) is "a part separated from the whole."

Originally Posted by Lindsay

На женщине туфли - On woman shoes.

It's important to note that in Russian there is no specific word for 'is' or 'are' (a 'to be' verb) that's most often used, it's usually implied. Therefore, literally the sentence means 'On the woman are shoes.' In English we would say 'The woman is wearing shoes.'

While Russian does have a verb 'to wear' Носить (which can also mean to carry or to bear), you'll often see just the prepositional case being used.