Quote Originally Posted by it-ogo View Post
There are terminological contradictions among the linguists. Some define case through the grammatical function, others - through the morphology. If you like (or found in internet first) morphological approach, it does not mean that others are impossible. Don't confuse the way of description with the law of nature and formalism with the essence. If you don't like term "Partitive case" you can use "Partitive function of Genitive case". Which sometimes can have alternative morphological form (case) unlike other functions.

So, if the question was: does "Хочешь воды?" mean "Do you want some water?" than answer is simple "Yes". Independently of any smart system of cute words you prefer to describe that phenomenon.
I have three different computers. One for MasterRussian, another for Might of Magic and the third for VLC. They happen to share the same physical incarnation just by coincidence. Right.

Anyway, the phrase "Хочешь воды?" doesn't show up the existence of partitive in Russian. "Хочешь мышьяку?" makes the real difference between genitive and partitive. I mean the difference which does exist in nature rather then in descriptive approaches.



Out of curiosity: do the linguists of the "functional school" argue that English nouns have seven (or probably more) grammatical cases?