Thread: Genetive used as possesive

I encountered the ending "-ина" in the following sentence
"Сашина мама вошла в комнату". By googling I found that
"мама саши" got 670 hits and "сашина мама" got 594 hits.
I couldn't find any info on this in my my worn out penguin Russian course book. What are the grammatical rules for determining which ending to use?

"Сашина мама" = "Мама Саши".
You can use every variant.

Танин папа = Папа Тани
Димина бабушка = Бабушка Димы
etc

What are the grammatical rules for determining which ending to use?

The ending depends on the gender of the object of possession.

Сашина мама (мама is feminine)
Сашин друг (друг is masculine)
Сашино здоровье (здоровье is neuter)

Originally Posted by Оля

You can use either variant.

Thanks a lot for the quick reply!
So it doesn't sound bookish to use the "-пн/о/а/и" ending instead of the
"usual" endings?

Originally Posted by Rickard

Thanks a lot for the quick reply!
So it doesn't sound bookish to use the "-пн/о/а/и" ending instead of the
"usual" endings?

No.
-ино/ина/ин endings are even more common in everydays speach, IMHO.

So it doesn't sound bookish to use the "-пн/о/а/и" ending instead of the "usual" endings?

Not at all. It's perfectly common. Although the "-ин/ино/ина" endings are only possible after people's names or some other words denoting people (мамин халат, папина ошибка). Maybe there are some exceptions I don't remember.

Oh, and the ending also changes to "-ины" in the plural form.
Сашины вещи (вещи is plural)

the bare genetive usually gives the meaning: "of -noun in genetive-"

such as

профессор русского языка = "Proffessor of the Russian Language/Russian Professor"

бутылка (французкого) вина = "Bottle of (French) wine"

Кошка моего брата = "My brother's cat/The cat of my brother"

Question to native speakers:
Would you say that the -ино/ина/ин endings are more often used by female speakers than male?

I mean like приветик - used more often by female speakers? Or is that just because of the diminutive?

Ehh?? Where did this come from? i've never heard of it before. Anyone got a link?

Originally Posted by chaika

Question to native speakers:
Would you say that the -ино/ина/ин endings are more often used by female speakers than male?

I don't think so. Absolutely not.

Originally Posted by Оля

"Сашина мама" = "Мама Саши".
You can use every variant.

Танин папа = Папа Тани
Димина бабушка = Бабушка Димы
etc

"Сашина мама" = "Мама Саши".
"Sasha's mother" = "mother of Sasha"

In Russian attribute placed before main word is preferrable. Especially for short attribute. It is more comfortable. There is no additional pause after main word.

"Сашина мама" = "Мама Саши".
"Костина мама" = "Мама Кости".
"Константинова мама" (bad) = "Мама Константина" (good).

Пришел Сашин папа. (А не петин)
Пришел папа Саши. (А не мама)

It also works with double possessives:

Друзья Сашиного брата = Sasha's brother's friends(lit: The friends of Sasha's brother)

OK, thanks. Where I got that was I read ten or so novels by Alexandra Marinina, sort of a contemporary Agatha Christie, and the form appears a lot in characters' speech.

Well, there are certain words that tend to be used by one gender or the other. How many native English-speaking males here have used the word "lovely" to describe something? =:^0

Originally Posted by chaika

How many native English-speaking males here have used the word "lovely" to describe something? =:^0

I do, quite often actually.

Originally Posted by chaika

Well, there are certain words that tend to be used by one gender or the other. How many native English-speaking males here have used the word "lovely" to describe something? =:^0

Я знаю многих мужчин, которые так говорят.

Originally Posted by basurero

Originally Posted by chaika

Well, there are certain words that tend to be used by one gender or the other. How many native English-speaking males here have used the word "lovely" to describe something? =:^0

Я знаю многих мужчин, которые так говорят.

Я мужчина, которой так говорит. :P