Thread: Genitive case being ignored?

I was given this phrase to translate to Russian:

Mom has a towel, it is so big you can wrap you whole body in it.

My translation was:

у мамы есть полотенцем. Оно такое большое, ты можешь окутывать твоё целого тела с им.

It was corrected to:

у мамы есть полотенцем. Оно такое большое, ты можешь закутать всё своё тело им.

I can handle the fact I used the wrong word (окутывать VS закутать ). But shouldn't "тело" in the corrected phrase be тела? Since тела is the genitive and genitive is possession, and we're talking about "своё"...

Am I right?

"Mom has a towel, it is so big you can wrap you whole body in it."
I would translate this as "У мамы есть полотенце. Оно такое большое, что в него можно закутать всё своё тело.

Genitive is not ignored here. It shouldn't be here because Genitive is only used to show possession where you in English use "of" for the same purpose, i.e. Genitive is not used with pronouns showing possession such as my, your, his, hers, etc. "Закутать (своё) тело" grammatically is the same type of phrase as "Видеть тело", which is a case for Accusative and pronouns don't change anything here. By the way, in Russian language, such pronouns act like adjectives in respect to nouns, i.e. nouns "influence" their gender, case, singular/plural form, but the pronouns can't make a noun change its case or anything else.

As for the second part of your phrase I would rather translate it as: "Оно такое большое, что в него можно полностью закутаться (or завернуться)" (i.e. It's so big you can wrap yourself entirely in it). I gave a different translation above because of the "тело/тела" issue.

Yep, закутать requires direct object i.e. object in Accusative, not Genitive.

Hmm. Let me get this straight. If I wanna say "This is your package."

I say:

Э́то твоя́ паке́т

And not:

Э́то твоя́ паке́та

?

This is your package = Это твой пакет.
"Пакет" is masculine, therefore the right form of the pronoun is "твой" (also masculine).
This is your idea = Это твоя идея ("идея" is feminine so the pronoun is feminine as well).
Case: Nominative.

These are the remains of your package = Это остатки твоего пакета.
Gender: Masculine;
Case: Genitive (because of the "of" showing possession).

Ahhh..perfectly understood now Thanks!

I'm curious what textbook you are using that gives these kinds of sentences.

Oh, my Russian friend gives me these sentences from her head she's my best friend and she helps me a great deal.

OK, I ran into genitive without "of"

In translating the phrase: Mom took my nephew to "story hour" at the library

Мама взяла моего племянника на "час истории" в библиотеке.

Note that "my nephew" is genitive! How come "this is your idea" is accusative, and "my nephew" is genitive?

"Мама взяла моего племянника..." (or rather "Отвела моего племянника...")
"my nephew" here is not Genitive, but Accusative, it's just that in this case the two forms coincide (i.e. the same). "Взять кого-то" or "Отвести кого-то" is the same as "Видеть кого-то" (Accusative).
As regards "story hour", phrases of that type (i.e. when nouns are used as adjectives) are often translated into Russian using Genitive, because in Russian we can't turn nouns into adjectives so freely as you do it in English. You might translate it as "исторический час" using a real adjective, but that would rather mean "history hour", not "story hour". But sometimes it can be done all right, e.g. "stage actor" = "театральный актер"(literally "сценический актер" though we don't usually say it like that or "актер сцены", Genitive again, but this is a less common expression). So the thing here is that we always have to use real adjectives, which might not be available, or if they are technically available, they might confuse the meaning not being quite the equivalent of similar expressions with Genitive.

"This is your idea"="Это твоя идея" is Nominative, not Accusative.
"This is your nephew"= "Это твой племянник" - the same.
"I took your idea" - "Я взял твою идею" is Accusative, as well as "I took your nephew".

Once again, the pronouns my, your, etc. don't produce Genitive themselves, they just have to be used in Genitive when the nouns they describe are in Genitive, be it because of the possession meaning or for any other reason, i.e. depending on the circumstances such pronouns can be used in any case from Nominative to Prepositional, since their form depends on the form of their nouns, the only exception being "его" (his) and "eё" (her) which never change their from and are the same whatever the case of the noun.
"This is his idea"="Это его идея" (Nominative)
"I took his idea"= "Я взял его идею" (Accusative)
"I'm thinking of his idea"="Я думаю о его идее" (Prepositional), etc.

Another important thing is that showing possession is not the only function of Genitive.

Originally Posted by Valda

OK, I ran into genitive without "of"

In translating the phrase: Mom took my nephew to "story hour" at the library

Мама взяла моего племянника на "час истории" в библиотеке.

Note that "my nephew" is genitive! How come "this is your idea" is accusative, and "my nephew" is genitive?

It is also accusative. For animate (grammatically animate - "who", not "what") objects accusative have exactly the same form as Genitive.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

It is also accusative. For animate (grammatically animate - "who", not "what") objects accusative have exactly the same form as Genitive.

Unfortunately, for a foreign learner it is tougher than that. Singular nouns ending in "-а/-я" (typically feminine, which, nevertheless, have some nouns for males: папа, дядя, мужчина etc.) have a separate accusative irregardless of their animacy.
I think, the most amazing thing is the plural of "лицо". This noun means "face", and in formal contexts - "person", "individual". Depending of what you mean, Accusative plural will be the same as Nominative plural ("I saw people's faces") or Genitive plural ("An officer noticed individuals behaving in a suspicious manner").

It is safe to say that for DeclensionI (consonant-ending and neuter) and plural nouns the rule holds: Accusative is the same as Nominative for inanimate and the same as Genitive for animate nouns.

Ah, yes. I missed Declension I.

Anyway the point is that there is a grammatical difference between animate and inanimate for the Accusative. And the difference between animate and inanimate is not always trivial. For example, "жареный цыпленок" is animate.

For example, "жареный цыпленок" is animate.

Furthermore: Words such as глаз ("eye"), рот ("mouth"), нос ("nose"), таз ("pelvis; hipbones") and still others refer to body parts of an animate person, and are made of living tissue, and are even masculine in gender. So, logically, one might expect that such words have an accusative identical in form to the genitive -- but they don't. Yet, as it-ogo notes, a (dead) and roasted young chicken IS animate! (I'm reminded that Karl Orff's Carmina Burana has an entire song performed by a Жареный Лебедёнок, "roasted cygnet"!)

P.S. I couldn't think of an example of a masculine body part that one might use in referring to a roasted chick or swan -- maybe окорок, "thigh"? If so, then one would say Я съел жареного лебедёнка (animate masc. acc.) but Я съел жареный лебединый окорок (inanimate masc. acc.)

Valda, all I can see happening is you getting more confused. It is painful to watch. You seem to be using the random approach to learning Russian, which is a very slow method, usually followed only by native speakers for the first few years of their life. =:^) I'd recommend you get yourself a textbook and do the exercises and listen to the audio, watch the video.

Originally Posted by chaika

Valda, all I can see happening is you getting more confused. It is painful to watch. You seem to be using the random approach to learning Russian, which is a very slow method, usually followed only by native speakers for the first few years of their life. =:^) I'd recommend you get yourself a textbook and do the exercises and listen to the audio, watch the video.

I second Chaika's comment. I studied Russian 20 years ago for the first time. I learned on my own from a textbook "Russian for beginners" It taught me the basic grammar and that structure was very helpful to me when I went to live in the Soviet Union in 1991. While I was living there, mostly I just learned by talking... but without that basic structure, I would have been completely lost! Now I am attempting to learn Russian all over again and the random approach doesn't help. For now I am just focused mainly on verbs. If I ever figure out Russian verbs I think I can finally die happy!! Learn one aspect of the language, then move on to the next. When you are talking, all the rules will help you a lot!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Furthermore: Words such as глаз ("eye"), рот ("mouth"), нос ("nose"), таз ("pelvis; hipbones") and still others refer to body parts of an animate person, and are made of living tissue, and are even masculine in gender.

Err... They are not animate. "Вижу рот". not "Вижу рта".

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Err... They are not animate. "Вижу рот". not "Вижу рта".

That's what he said after that.

So, logically, one might expect that such words have an accusative identical in form to the genitive -- but they don't.

Originally Posted by zxc

That's what he said after that.

Ah, so his logic was the following: animate is like animated that is something that moves and lives. So body parts should be animate.

But in Russian "animate" - одушевленный, "which has a soul", so this logic is not apparent for me. BTW in Latin "anima" also means "soul". "Animate" in fact is not just something living and moving (like a body part) but something that makes an impression of possessing its own will. So the word "цыпленок" is animate (independently of its current fried condition) and "тело" is not animate because it's a soul that possess body, not vice versa.

A quick net search turns up:
Я вижу покойника, мертвеца, кадавра ("animate"). but Я вижу труп.

Я вижу вирус. but Я вижу микроба, макрофага ("animate").

Animate neuter nouns: дитя, создание, существо, чудовище.

Я вижу насекомых : Я вижу насекомое

Я вижу привидений. - Я вижу привидения.

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