Thread: verbs with genitive / глаголы и существительные в род. пад.

Hello! I was wondering if someone could please help me get an answer to the following question. I've noticed that there are several verbs in Russian which take their direct object in the genitive instead of the accusative: e.g., "Я жду поезда. Желаю вам счастья. Хочешь пирога?" I was wondering why this is so. Is there a rule explaining this occurence? Or, is there a set list of verbs that take their direct objects in the genitive, instead of the accusative? Any help would be greatly appreciated -- thank you!

Добрый день! Обращаюсь к Вам со следующим вопросом -- я заметил, что некоторые глаголы сопровождаются прямым дополнением не в винительном, а в родительном падеже. Например, «Я жду поезда. Желаю вам счастья. Хочешь пирога?» Пожалуйста, подскажите, почему это. Существует ли какое-нибудь правило, объясняющее эту ситуацию? Или, быть может, есть список глаголов, которые всегда дополняются родительным, а не винительным падежом? Большое спасибо!

The examples you have given demonstrate different grammatical points:

Хочешь молока... etc. this has nothing to do with the verb хотеть, it is all to do with the noun. The use of the genitive with nouns, especially uncountable stuff, esp. food-stuffs, is called the genitive partitive and means "some of":

Xoчешь молока (gen.) - Do you want some milk?
Хочешь молоко (acc.) - Do you want the milk?

This is pretty much independant from the verb itself, so this is separate from the other verbs mentioned.

Ждать and желать can take the accusative or genitive. I believe there is a difference in the nuance of the meaning.

However generally you need to just learn case usage with verbs.

TATY, thanks so much for your response. I am actually bilingual in English and Russian, so I am not learning these per se, but just trying to get a clearer understanding of what goes on in these cases.

The use of genitive & accusative with "хотеть" makes sense now, but you say that

"Ждать and желать can take the accusative or genitive. I believe there is a difference in the nuance of the meaning."

-- Do you know what the difference is? I don't think I could ever say "Я желаю тебе счастье" in Russian; I'd always say "счастья".

With the verb "to wait," I think both "Я жду поезд" and "Я жду поезда" sound OK to me, but I can't quite tell what the difference is.

If you have any additional comments, I'd love to hear them. Thank you again!