Thread: Род. падеж мно. числа песня

After having done an exercise about forming gen. plural of nouns I have discovered a rule not found before in my books: Feminine nouns ending in -я preceded by a consonant form their gen. plural with -ь. No exception is found in the exercise proposed by Auburn University: неделя -> недель; песня ->песень; туфля (туфли)-> туфель; капля -> капель. My spirit has fall down when I finally have found hidden in a remote corner of a remote place of my dictionary that "this rule is OK save after н". And gives as an example песня ->песен, following so the general rule: книга -> книг. Perhaps it is rather an academical question. I think that my dictionary is right, but, what do you think of it all ? Thanks

Originally Posted by radomir

After having done an exercise about forming gen. plural of nouns I have discovered a rule not found before in my books: Feminine nouns ending in -я preceded by a consonant form their gen. plural with -ь. No exception is found in the exercise proposed by Auburn University: неделя -> недель; песня ->песень; туфля (туфли)-> туфель; капля -> капель. My spirit has fall down when I finally have found hidden in a remote corner of a remote place of my dictionary that "this rule is OK save after н". And gives as an example песня ->песен, following so the general rule: книга -> книг. Perhaps it is rather an academical question. I think that my dictionary is right, but, what do you think of it all ? Thanks

The genitive plural is one of the trickiest cases to form.

Basically every "rule" has it's exceptions.

Regarding nouns ending -я. What you describe is no great discovery and is actually covered by the zero ending rule for nouns ending in -а.

Я is the soft variant of А. Therefore when forming cases you expect the soft variant of the case ending.

What's the soft variant of a zero ending? The soft variant of a zero ending (i.e. a bare consonant) is -ь. (i.e. a soft consonant).

книга ---> книг
To form the gen. plu. of feminine nouns in -a you simply remove the final -а.

неделя. To form the genitive plural you do the same thing, you remove the final -а. неделя = [недельа]. If you remove the -а sound from the end of a noun ending in -я you are soft with a soft consonant.



The same applies to neuter nouns ending in -е.

окно ---> окон
To form the gen. plu. you remove the final -о to give the zero ending (окн, then a fill vowel О is added between the final two consonants for ease of pronunciation).

море ---> морь
In neuter nouns Е is the soft variant of the ending of О, so you get a soft zero ending in the genitive plural.

As for песня (песен), it's an exception to the logically expected form.

"Rules" in languages nearly always have their exceptions, you just learn them when you come across them.

Originally Posted by TATY

море ---> морь
In neuter nouns Е is the soft variant of the ending of О, so you get a soft zero ending in the genitive plural.

There's no such form - морь.
The plural genitive from море is морей.

Radomir, for песня it's песен, without ь.

Thanks for your help.