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

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    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?

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

    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.
    "Россия для русских" - это неправильно. Остальные-то чем лучше?

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

    Quote 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.

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

    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
    Вот это да, я так люблю себя. И сегодня я люблю себя, ещё больше чем вчера, а завтра я буду любить себя to ещё больше чем сегодня. Тем что происходит,я вполне доволен!

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

    Quote 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

    Quote 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
    Налево пойдёшь - коня потеряешь, направо пойдёшь - сам голову сложишь.
    Прямой путь не предлагать!

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