Thread: самим делать деньги

Link: Отношение россиян к деньгам.

Конечно, россиян десятилетиями приучали к тому, что «самим делать деньги — нехорошо», их можно только зарабатывать, . т.е. получать в виде зарплаты — столько, «сколько положено», сколько назначит начальство.


1. What does самим mean here? Is it dative or instrumental?
2. столько, «сколько положено», сколько назначит начальство
And what about положено? And would you also tell me what does this whole phrase mean?

1. Dative, plural.
The reason why there is dative here is tricky. And, maybe, I get it all wrong, so correct me.
When we have a phrase with a subject, we use nominative сам / сама / само / сами to express the ‘-self’ idea:

Он делает деньги сам. ‘He makes money himself’
Она делает деньги сама. ‘She makes money herself’
Они делают деньги сами. ‘They make money themselves’

Even if the verb is in the infinitive form:

Он хочет делать деньги сам. ‘He wants to make money himself’
Она хочет делать деньги сама. ‘She wants to make money herself’
Они хотят делать деньги сами. ‘They want to make money themselves’

But if the phrase is impersonal, the actant in it goes dative, so does the pronoun сам:

Ему нужно делать деньги самому. ‘He needs to make money himself’
Ей нужно делать деньги самой. ‘She needs to make money herself’
Им нужно делать деньги самим. ‘They need to make money themselves’

Here, we have an impersonal phrase:
самим делать деньги — нехорошо.
It lacks the actual actant, but if it were there, it would be in dative:
e.g. людям делать деньги самим — нехорошо.

ooo good questions.
*Not a native*

1. сам being an adjective meaning roughly "oneself", used to stress that the noun it is applied to is purposefully and exactly the noun it ought to be referred to as.

In my opinion, самим is the instrumental here, applied to, essentially, an omitted noun. I would say understanding the quote requires a very well abstracted and deepened understanding of the instrumental case's use in general (if I am right, and it is indeed instrumental).

"To make money (by) yourself is bad." (try reading with and without the 'by') - where in Russian the word for yourself is in the instrumental to indicate that it is the tool by which the verb is carried out.

As opposed to "To make yourselves money is bad" - where the Russian would have самим in the dative, but I believe the context imposes that the quote is somewhat of a saying that one would hear said to oneself as a single person, not a member of a group [россияне](faulty argument). My other bit of evidence is that the following clauses contrast the idea of making money oneself (instrumental), but doesn't well contrast the sentence if were самим(dative). (wrong, explained above)

The whole idea being "Making money oneself is bad, (because) you only *earn* it!", not самим, а *от* кого-то

Having read the above response, dative plural seems to be able to check out on all accounts
The dative working as "It is bad *for them themselves* to make money."

2. This stems from classical т-к constructions. The idea being, one word can't play multiple roles in a sentence [a splendid idea if you ask me], such that

"Я сделаю так, как ты сказал"
Because так applies to сделаю; and как to сказал

Whereas English uses the question words (beginning in h or w generally) to act as double roles
"I'll do it how you said"

как How= in what way
так [lacking true equivalent]= in that way

~I'll do it in that way, which you said

столько, сколько

сколько - how much
столько - so much, this much

получать в виде зарплаты — столько, «сколько положено»
-------------------------------------------, сколько назначит начальство.
to receive as salary - so much, as is appropriate, as superiors appoint.

It gets translated with slightly different words, I would say, because English lacks the same pure system, so we just use the most fitting rudimentary equivalent.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/положено