Thread: Did you know that Russian has 15 cases?

Originally Posted by Hanna

There are quite enough modern cases, thanks.... !
Let's map them to the English or Latin equivalent.

When I took Latin in high school, we learned that there are 7 cases -- of which two (vocative and locative) are used only with certain nouns (in classical Latin, there are only four or five nouns that have a locative case at all, if I remember correctly).

But for the five main cases, some of them had multiple functions, and we had to memorize the formal names for these functions. For example, we didn't simply learn that there is an "ablative case"; we were taught about:

Ablative of Place Where
Ablative of Place From Which
Ablative of Instrument or Agency
Ablative of Accompaniment
Ablative Absolute

...etc.

To me, this makes more sense than treating each of these ablative functions as a different падеж -- since, after all, the ablative singular of gladius (sword) is always gladiō regardless of whether you want to say that "there is blood ON the sword" (Place Where) or that "someone was killed BY the sword" (Instrument) or that "he traveled WITH his sword" (Accompaniment).

So, in the case of Russian, you could teach the Отделительный and Ждательный functions as "Genitive of Partition" and "Genitive of Antici...
...
...
...pation" (or something like that), rather than as entirely different cases from the Родительный.


PS. Regarding the звательный падеж, are there any examples at all other than Господи and Боже?

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

PS. Regarding the звательный падеж, are there any examples at all other than Господи and Боже?

Мам, Пап.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

PS. Regarding the звательный падеж, are there any examples at all other than Господи and Боже?

New vocative: ребят, девчат, мам, пап, баб, кис, дорогуль, детуль, роднуль, Вась, Петь, Кать, Вов...

Old vocative: господи, боже, княже, отче, друже, старче, владыко, Исусе Христе, ...
Example for plural: панове, that is used to address Poles (or those who can be addressed "пан" in singular) or translate Polish speech.

Originally Posted by Anixx

Example for plural: панове, that is used to address Poles (or those who can be addressed "пан" in singular) or translate Polish speech.

and Ukrainian

Originally Posted by LXNDR

and Ukrainian

I never seen such usage.

Originally Posted by Anixx

I never seen such usage.

панове ты не слышал?

Originally Posted by LXNDR

панове ты не слышал?

По отношению к украинцам - нет.

Originally Posted by Anixx

По отношению к украинцам - нет.

по-украински иначе и не скажешь, разве что шановне панство, но это слишком высокопарно

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

When I took Latin in high school....

In retrospect it seems to me that the big advantage of taking Latin in school is acquiring superior knowledge of grammar!

I mean what other purpose is there? Ocassionally understanding the meaning of an unusual word, or being able to understand inscriptions on church walls just doesn't seem like a motivation for language studies. I find it almost impossible to learn the type of grammar skills you need for studying Russian as an adult. I wish I had learnt it in childhood like you, and Bitpicker did.

I on the other hand did close to a year of Russian in school, but the teacher took a quite relaxed view of the grammar and started with acquiring vocabulary and some other things instead. I actually dropped out and managed to switch to the "easiest" 3rd foreign language option, Spanish, instead. No 16 cases or Cyrillic letters there!