Thread: A small question about много

Originally Posted by impulse

Why?

In old Russian (maybe, 11th century or alike) nouns had 3 grammar numbers: Singular, Dual and Plural. And yes, that was the way all the Indo-European languages developed. The dual number was lost in most of the languages by merging with plural, however it still exists in a few of them (Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian, Sorbian and Frisian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)).

The traces of the dual form are still found in Russian: рукав (a sleeve) has an unusual form of plural: рукава (instead of the expected рукавы, which does not exist). The same is with глаз (eye): глаза (and not глазы). The same is with ухо (ear): уши (and not уха, as it should be expected for the neutral gender). There are some other similar examples.
The explanation is that all those forms (рукава, глаза, уши) which are now considered as plurals, used to be the dual forms (old Russian: рукав (1) - рукава (2), рукавы (>2), the latter was rarely used since sleeves usually come in pairs, the same with eyes, ears...).
But the old Russian had separate dual and plural forms for every countable noun.

That is why, the number "два" (2) was originally used with the dual form: два года (two years), два города (2 towns), два моста (2 bridges).
So, what's wrong with "три", "четыре"? They are not dual, they should require plural. Yes! But the language sometimes changes obeying "the rule of analogy". People started using 3 and 4 the same way as 2. And that usage has become generally accepted.

But then Russian lost its dual number. However, the nominative dual form just occasionally was very similar to the genitive singular. People continued saying "два года, три года, четыре года", but this form was re-interpreted as the genitive singular. Because people forgot it was dual.

And what's with 5, 6 and greater? Those words (пять, шесть, ...) were originally nouns, not numerals. Therefeore, they required Plural Genitive (the same way as you say "a lot OF cars", "hundreds OF cars"). So, we say "пять городов, пять мостов, шесть городов, шесть мостов".

As to "год", I think someone else can explain why "годов" was replaced by "лет". I do not know an explanation for this word.

Due to some reason, people started counting "summers" instead of "years". By its origin, "лет" is genitive plural of "лето" (summer).

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

...Он посетил много стран. - He visited a lot of countries.
Он посетил многие страны. - He visited many of the countries.

Is there another one, for "He visited (much)/(a lot) of the country" Он посетил много страны. ?? Or is that one многое? Он посетил многое страны.

Он побывал во многих частях/городах этой страны.
Он посетил много городов страны.

Thank you! I can see that what I was asking doesn't have any sense.

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

In old Russian (maybe, 11th century or alike) nouns had 3 grammar numbers: Singular, Dual and Plural. And yes, that was the way all the Indo-European languages developed. The dual number was lost in most of the languages by merging with plural, however it still exists in a few of them (Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian, Sorbian and Frisian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)).

The traces of the dual form are still found in Russian: рукав (a sleeve) has an unusual form of plural: рукава (instead of the expected рукавы, which does not exist). The same is with глаз (eye): глаза (and not глазы). The same is with ухо (ear): уши (and not уха, as it should be expected for the neutral gender). There are some other similar examples.
The explanation is that all those forms (рукава, глаза, уши) which are now considered as plurals, used to be the dual forms (old Russian: рукав (1) - рукава (2), рукавы (>2), the latter was rarely used since sleeves usually come in pairs, the same with eyes, ears...).
But the old Russian had separate dual and plural forms for every countable noun.

That is why, the number "два" (2) was originally used with the dual form: два года (two years), два города (2 towns), два моста (2 bridges).
So, what's wrong with "три", "четыре"? They are not dual, they should require plural. Yes! But the language sometimes changes obeying "the rule of analogy". People started using 3 and 4 the same way as 2. And that usage has become generally accepted.

But then Russian lost its dual number. However, the nominative dual form just occasionally was very similar to the genitive singular. People continued saying "два года, три года, четыре года", but this form was re-interpreted as the genitive singular. Because people forgot it was dual.

And what's with 5, 6 and greater? Those words (пять, шесть, ...) were originally nouns, not numerals. Therefeore, they required Plural Genitive (the same way as you say "a lot OF cars", "hundreds OF cars"). So, we say "пять городов, пять мостов, шесть городов, шесть мостов".

As to "год", I think someone else can explain why "годов" was replaced by "лет". I do not know an explanation for this word.

Due to some reason, people started counting "summers" instead of "years". By its origin, "лет" is genitive plural of "лето" (summer).

Thanks for this explanation. I am at work and I cannot look this in detail. But when I go home I will read it carefully. I will have some questions regarding that. Talk later.

This is really a good explanation thanks a lot.
With 1 > nominative singular form of the noun is used.
2-3-4 > genetive singular form of the noun is used.
5-6-7 and so on > genetive plural form of the noun is used.
Is that right or am I missing something?

Originally Posted by impulse

This is really a good explanation thanks a lot.
With 1 > nominative singular form of the noun is used.
2-3-4 > genetive singular form of the noun is used.
5-6-7 and so on > genetive plural form of the noun is used.
Is that right or am I missing something?

Exactly! You got it right!
And then, more precisely:

Nominative Singular is used with 1 as well as with any number which ends in 1 (21, 31, ..., 91, 101, 121, ...) except those which end in 11 (since 11 is "одиннадцать" and it does not end in "один"): один стол, двадцать один стол, тридцать один стол, ..., девяность один стол, сто один стол, сто двадцать один стол...


Genitive Singular: 2, 3, 4, 22, 23, 24, 32, 33, 34, ..., 102, 103, 104, 122, 123, 124... (the exceptions are numbers ending in 12, 13, 14 since they do not end in "два", "три", "четыре"): два стола, три стола, четыре стола, двадцать два стола, тридцать три стола, сто четыре стола...

Genitive Plural: all other numbers
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, ..., 100, 105, 106, ..., 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116...:
пять столов, шесть столов, семь столов, восемь столов, девять столов, десять столов, одиннадцать столов, двенадцать столов, тринадцать столов, четырнадцать столов, пятнадцать столов, шестнадцать столов, семнадцать столов, восемнадцать столов, девятнадцать столов, двадцать столов, ..., сто столов, ..., тысяча столов, ... миллион столов.

The rule of the thumb is: check the very last word of a compound numeral. It governs the noun.

Thanks alot. That is the clearest explanation I got about this topic.
I still am not studied about the genative case so I cannot use this rule effectively but at least it is carved into my mind.
Is it hard to form genative singular/plural nouns? I must have a look at that.

From MR site: Genitive Case of Russian Nouns

Originally Posted by Seraph

Is there another one, for "He visited (much)/(a lot) of the country" Он посетил много страны. ?? Or is that one многое? Он посетил многое страны.

он много где был в стране
он много куда ездил по стране

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

...
I understand that I need "of" in the phrase like "in the shade of green trees" (в тени зелёных деревьев), since it is genitive in the Russian phrase (деревьев).
But why shouldn't I use the "of" in the phrase like "five tall green trees" (пять высоких зелёных деревьев)? It is the same genitive there! Don't I need "of" in English?

...
...have to say "a lot OF cars" but "many cars" without "of". The same way as I remember I have to say "hundreds OF cars" but "one hundred cars". It does not seem logical to me, but I've got used to it nonetheless.

Боб, you're so good at all this that you probably know about the additional formations:

"one hundred of the cars" so when it is a sub-quantity, it is genitive, with 'of'. "Many of the cars were old."

"five tall green trees" => "five of the tall green trees" a sub-quantity. So there is a specificity thing happening.

It depends on what the emphasis is on.

"Take five men and search the field." vs "Take five of the men and search the field."

A more interesting question: why do we say the city of London, but uncle John (not the uncle of John, for example)?

Thanks, Seraph! Yes, I knew that, although I did not want to over-complicate my examples
However, this use of "OF" (sounds funny - of "OF") conveys a bit different meaning, and it is rendered in Russian by means of "из".

"Ten cars" is "десять машин" in Russian. While "ten of the cars" is "десять из машин" (but usually with an extra definition: "десять из этих машин", "десять из тех машин", "десять из наших машин" etc.). This is how we express sub-quantity, or extract from a set.

In English: "one hundred cars" but "hundreds of cars". Both do not mean sub-quantity. In Russian: "сто машин" (сотня машин) and "сотни машин".
However, "hundreds of the cars" is "сотни из (тех/этих/новых...) машин".

Originally Posted by Marcus

A more interesting question: why do we say the city of London, but uncle John (not the uncle of John, for example)?

Really! But I am not sure if native speakers understand our logic behind that. The expected answer is probably "uncle of John" is "John's uncle", but "uncle John" is someone else's uncle