Thread: plural

i sometimes have a problem figuring out what the plural of some words is.
there are a few masculine words that take an "a" in the plural.

is there some kind of a rule for that or should i just learn by heart?

Originally Posted by possopo

i sometimes have a problem figuring out what the plural of some words is.
there are a few masculine words that take an "a" in the plural.

is there some kind of a rule for that or should i just learn by heart?

Learn them. I presume you mean words like Doma, Goroda, etc.
Watch the stresses:


Дома - nominative plural
Дома - genitive singular

Города - nominative plural
Города - genitive singular

TATY wrote:I presume you mean words like Doma, Goroda, etc.

exactly.
same problem with no ending plurals. why vorot and not voroti for instance?

interesting thing with the stresses. does that apply to most words ending their plural in "a"?

Originally Posted by possopo

i sometimes have a problem figuring out what the plural of some words is.
there are a few masculine words that take an "a" in the plural.

is there some kind of a rule for that or should i just learn by heart?

What language are you talking about?

Originally Posted by Kirill2142

Originally Posted by possopo

i sometimes have a problem figuring out what the plural of some words is.
there are a few masculine words that take an "a" in the plural.

is there some kind of a rule for that or should i just learn by heart?

What language are you talking about?

Erm.... Russian.

Ворот - сollar - the plural is Вороты.

It is quite strange but I can’t remember words that end in ‘a’ when they’re plural. Облака (облако), for example. What else?… Вёдра (ведро), письма (письмо), берега (берег). There’re few plural nouns with ‘a’-ending. ‘и’ and ‘ы’ are more likely. What about no-ending plurals? If the word (singular noun) ends in ‘a’, it doesn’t have ending when genitive plural. Maybe there’re some exceptions but I don’t remember them.
Examples:
У меня есть ручка
У меня нет ручек (не рук, а pens )

На столе лежит большая ложка (вилка)
На столе нет ложек (вилок)

«Видишь звезды на небе?» (звезда)
«Там нет звезд!»

рука – рук
нога – ног
and so on

Pay attention to ложка – ложек, вилка – вилок ( not ложк and вилк). ‘к’ is suffix; лож and вил are roots, so you should put ‘е’ between ‘ж’ and ‘к’, and ‘o’ between ‘л’ and ‘к’. By the way ‘e’ not only after ‘ж’ but after ‘ш’ as well.

By the way, do not say "Я имею ручку( ложку, вилку и т.д.)". It sounds funny. Иметь кого-то/что-то is like to f**k someone/something . In informal language, of course.

Just memorize the words with irregular declension forms. There is no logical reason whatsoever that we say дома rather than домы. As a matter of fact, 300 years or so ago, домы was was the norm. Even in 1800s, some writers used the now-archaic form (домы) pretty often. But these days, we all say "дома." So, you only can memorize it.

Originally Posted by Kirill2142

It is quite strange but I can’t remember words that end in ‘a’ when they’re plural. Облака (облако), for example. What else?… Вёдра (ведро), письма (письмо), берега (берег). There’re few plural nouns with ‘a’-ending. ‘и’ and ‘ы’ are more likely. What about no-ending plurals? If the word (singular noun) ends in ‘a’, it doesn’t have ending when genitive plural. Maybe there’re some exceptions but I don’t remember them.
Examples:
У меня есть ручка
У меня нет ручек (не рук, а pens )

На столе лежит большая ложка (вилка)
На столе нет ложек (вилок)

«Видишь звезды на небе?» (звезда)
«Там нет звезд!»

рука – рук
нога – ног
and so on

Pay attention to ложка – ложек, вилка – вилок ( not ложк and вилк). ‘к’ is suffix; лож and вил are roots, so you should put ‘е’ between ‘ж’ and ‘к’, and ‘o’ between ‘л’ and ‘к’. By the way ‘e’ not only after ‘ж’ but after ‘ш’ as well.

You've misunderstood.

He was talking about MASCULINE nouns that take A in the plural.

Like Cтол - Столы
мальчик - мальчики
Жизнь - Жизни

But:

Дом - Дома (NOT домы)
Город - Города (NOT городы)


Neuter nouns end in A in the plural. This is regular:

Место - Места
Море - Моря
Письмо - Письма



I think Pososoosospsopsos is confusing the genitive plural when he is talking about the zero ending though.

Originally Posted by TATY

Ворот - сollar - the plural is Вороты.

On my first reaction I wouldn't translate "ворот" as "collar". There are two meanings of this word: collar and moulinet.

If word "ворот" goes in phrase with some peace of clothes, like "ворот рубахи", I'd translate it as collar, but if it stays alone, I'd understand it as primitive lifting mechanism.

Collar is "воротник", "ворот" meaning collar is a bit archaic.

TATY wrote:

I think Pososoosospsopsos is confusing the genitive plural when he is talking about the zero ending though.

i was thinking about vorota, vorot.
there must be others, i guess.

ворота has two meanings.

One does not have a singular form, that is ворота is the plural.

Then there is ворота which is the nominative sig. which has the plural вороты.

There is no word ворота that has the nominative plural ворот.

From the best Russian reference grammar there is (written in English):

There are 30-40 masc. nouns ending in hard consonant that take the nom. pl. ending -

Originally Posted by TATY

Then there is ворота which is the nominative sig. which has the plural вороты.

maybe ворот?

It seems this trends goes on in the modern language. If 200 years before or so it was norm to say "домы", nowadays here and there I read and hear "драйвера", "принтера", although I hate this.
Originally -a was an ending of neutral plural. Since neutral nouns are all of the 2nd declination, and many of the male nouns are also of the 2nd declination, some of them got mixed inn the course of time, I think.