Thread: Declining Animate, Plural, Neuter, Accusative/Genitive

I cannot find any resources in regards to this. They all basically seem to think that there is no such thing as an animate, neuter, noun in Russian. This came up because I have a grammar book which says that in accusative, animate plurals take the form of genitive plural but shows насекомое becoming насекомых when I would've expected it to become насекомоей. I spent a good hour trying to find somewhere that shows you why this is not the case, but haven't yet found one. I asked several other native speakers for an explanation but they didn't know.

So, here it is according to them:

чудовище -> чудовищ
животное -> животных
млекопитающее -> млекопитающих
насекомое -> насекомых

With only four words to work with, the only pattern I can see is that if the word ends in two vowels (ое, ее), you change them to -ых/-их, else you just drop the vowel; or basically like a neuter adjective. Perhaps you could shed some light on this subject for me or point me in the direction of a resource that covers this?

Yes, animate accusative mainly take the form of genitive. (I think it is the case independently on gender and number.)

животное, млекопитающее, насекомое are nouns that derived from adjectives and they are declined according to rules for adjectives.

And yes, animated neuter nouns are very rare in Russian.

Originally Posted by Niops

So, here it is according to them:

чудовище -> чудовищ
животное -> животных
млекопитающее -> млекопитающих
насекомое -> насекомых

With only four words to work with, the only pattern I can see is that if the word ends in two vowels (ое, ее), you change them to -ых/-их, else you just drop the vowel; or basically like a neuter adjective. Perhaps you could shed some light on this subject for me or point me in the direction of a resource that covers this?

I'd suggest you to include one more step to this sceme, which is plural nominative form:

животное -> животные -> животных
млекопитающее -> млекопитающие -> млекопитающих
насекомое -> насекомые -> насекомых

As it-ogo said, these words (except for чудовище) are declined according to rules for adjectives thus their accusative plural form looks like it answers the question "каких?" for animate and "какие?" for inanimate.

I'll never forget when I was in like at Ростик'с and I had to ask my friend how to say 2 мороженое Being put on the spot is a great way to never forget

Originally Posted by Niops

I cannot find any resources in regards to this. They all basically seem to think that there is no such thing as an animate, neuter, noun in Russian. This came up because I have a grammar book which says that in accusative, animate plurals take the form of genitive plural but shows насекомое becoming насекомых when I would've expected it to become [s:2l22nqyc]насекомоей[/s:2l22nqyc].

насекомого - singular genitive
насекомых - plural genitive

Originally Posted by Niops

Perhaps you could shed some light on this subject for me or point me in the direction of a resource that covers this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gr ... uter_nouns