The difference between the genitive case and the accusative case. How to distinguish the accusative from the genitive case

In Russian everything six independent cases, and nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns are declined (changed by case). But schoolchildren often have difficulty determining case. Students cannot always correctly put a question to a word, and this leads to mistakes. Particular difficulties arise when a word has the same form in different cases.

There are several techniques that will help you accurately determine the case of a word.

1. Statement of the question.

Please note that the question must be case, and not semantic. For questions where? Where? When? Why? case cannot be determined.

Both candidates(who? R. p.).

What happened in 1812?(in what? P. p.).

After the concert five(I. p.) spectators(whom? R. p.) stayed in the hall(in what? P. p.).

In ten minutes(through what? V. p.) he (I. p.) returned.

She is happy with the new car(how? etc.).

2. Exist auxiliary words, which can help in determining case:

Case

Auxiliary word

Case question

Nominative

Genitive

whom? what?

Dative

to whom? what?

Accusative

whom? what?

Instrumental

Prepositional

speak

about whom? about what?


To distinguish homonymous case forms, the following techniques are used.

3. Replacing the singular with the plural.

To go on the road(ending -e in both D. p. and P. p.).

Walk on the roads(Why? D. p., in P. p. about roads).

4. Replacing the masculine gender with the feminine gender.

Met a friend(the ending -a in both R. p. and V. p.).

Met a friend(whom? V. p., in R. p. girlfriends).

5. The magic word is mom.

Particular difficulties arise when distinguishing the forms of accusative and genitive, accusative and nominative cases. As always, he will come to the rescue "Mother". This is the word that can be substituted into a sentence. Framed, look at the ending: mom A nominative, mom Y Genitive; mom U accusative.

Perish yourself, and comrade(ending -a in both R. p. and V. p.) help out.

Die yourself, and mom(V.p.) help out.

6. Knowledge of characteristic prepositions also helps to determine case.

Case

Prepositions

Nominative

Genitive

without, at, from, to, with, from, near

Dative

Accusative

on, for, under, through, in, about,

Instrumental

over, behind, under, with, before, between

Prepositional

in, about, about, on, at

As you can see, there are prepositions characteristic of only one case: without for genitive case (no hitch); by, to for dative case (through the forest, towards the house), oh, oh, at for prepositional case (about three heads, in front of you).

Let us remember that the case of the adjective is determined by the case of the word being defined. In order to determine the case of an adjective, it is necessary to find in the sentence the noun to which it refers, because the adjective is always in the same case as the word being defined.

I'm happy with the new coat. Adjective new refers to a noun coat in T. p., therefore, new etc.

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How to distinguish the accusative case from the genitive and nominative?

Perhaps the most interesting of all cases in the Russian language is the accusative. Because everyone else answers their questions calmly and does not cause difficulties. With the accusative case everything is different. It can very easily be confused with a nominative or genitive. After all the accusative case answers the questions “Whom?” What?" The accusative case denotes the object of the action. A noun, being in the accusative case, experiences the action of another noun, which in this sentence is a predicate. Everything becomes clear with the example: “I love my brother.” The noun "brother" will be in the accusative case. And he will experience a feeling of love from the pronoun “I”. What you should pay attention to when determining the case, so as not to confuse it with the nominative, is the ending. Below is the table:

To distinguish the accusative case from the genitive case, we will use auxiliary words and questions. For the genitive - no (who, what), for the accusative - I see (who, what). As you can see, the questions are different for animate and inanimate objects. Let's play on this.

Let's look at an example:

“Grandma is not at home.” Let's substitute an inanimate object - “there are no keys in the house.” No one, what? Grandmothers, keys. Genitive.

“I don’t see a plate on the table.” Let's substitute an animate object - “I don’t see my brother on the table.” I don’t see who – my brother, I don’t see what – a plate. Whom, what – accusative case.

Features of the accusative case.

The accusative case is used with prepositions such as “In, for, about, on, through.” Difficulties may still arise with the accusative case when tense concepts are indicated in sentences. Let's give an example: “Rewrite an essay all night.” The nouns “night” and “abstract” are in the accusative case in this sentence. You need to be extremely careful with such offers. Along with the confusion between the accusative and the nominative, it can also be confused with the genitive. Let's give an example: “Wait for mother” and “Wait for message.” In the first case the case will be genitive, and in the second case it will be accusative. The difference here is due to the declination of animate and inanimate objects, as we already wrote above.

Instructions

In order to determine case names, it is necessary, first of all, to pose a question to. Words related to nominative case y, to the questions WHO? WHAT? If you asked questions WHO? or WHAT?, then you have a noun used in the accusative form case A.

Determine what the noun is. If the word is the subject, i.e. the main member of the sentence, then it is used in the nominative form case a.Accusative case om denotes a word that is a minor member in a sentence, a direct object. For example, ask the guys to define case in this sentence.
The girl writes. Ask them to pose questions, determine which member of the sentence they are. They should come to the following result. The word “girl” answers the question WHO?, is the subject, which means it is used in the nominative case e. And the word “letter” is a minor member of the sentence, a direct object. It answers the question WHAT? and therefore is used in the accusative case e.

Draw the attention of schoolchildren to the fact that the noun is used with or without it. Words in the nominative case They are not used without prepositions. In the accusative - they have prepositions ON, FOR, THROUGH, IN, etc.

It is also worthwhile when determining case and compare the endings in . So, nouns of the first declension will have endings A, Z, if they are in the nominative form case A. Accordingly, in the accusative case e - U, Yu. For example, in the first declension noun “wall” the ending is A. It is used in the nominative case e. The word "wall" U. This means it has an accusative case.

Case indicates the role of a word in a sentence. You can use the helper phrase WHO DOES WHAT to distinguish between nominative and accusative case to her.

“Ivan Gave Birth to a Girl and Ordered to Drag a Diaper” - the first letters of this literary nonsense orderly read out the list of cases. There are six types of cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional. Each of them speaks about the temporary state of a particular noun, which can change in case form. Determining the type of case of a noun is not difficult; you just need to figure out what question each case answers.

Instructions

Case nominative– initial, real sound of the word. Answers the questions “who?” or “what?” If it is inanimate, for example: a window, a house, a book, a bus, then it answers the question “what?”, and if it is animate, for example, a girl, an elephant, a mother, Rita, then, accordingly, it answers the question “who?” This distribution according to the liveliness of the subject will concern everyone, which is why each case has two questions. Example 1. Man (who?) is an animate noun in the nominative case, machine (what?) is an inanimate noun in the nominative case.

Genitive case, from the word “to give birth to whom?” or “what?” No matter how funny it may sound, this is exactly how the question should be asked. A number of questions are the same, so some words will sound the same, the main thing is to put the case question correctly. Example 2. A person (whom?) is an animate noun in the genitive case, a car (what?) is an inanimate noun in the genitive case.

The accusative case answers the question: “whom to blame?” or “what?” In the above example, an inanimate noun coincides, so the case is determined logically, according to meaning. Example 4. A person (who?) is an animate noun in the accusative case, a car (what?) is an inanimate noun in the accusative case. But if it makes sense: I bought a car (genitive case), but crashed the car (accusative case).

The instrumental case sounds like: “to create by whom?” or “what?” Example 5. By a person (by whom?) is an animate noun in the instrumental case, by a machine (by what?) is an inanimate noun in the instrumental case.

Prepositional case - posing a question that is not consonant with its name: “to talk about whom?” or “about what?” It is easy to determine a word in this case, since a noun in this case always has . Example 6. About a person (about whom?) is an animate noun in the prepositional case, about a car (about what?) is an inanimate noun in the prepositional case.

Video on the topic

Helpful advice

Even if a case question does not match the meaning in a given sentence, it should still be asked to determine the case of a noun.

Related article

Sources:

  • School experience
  • cases example words

Tip 3: How to distinguish the genitive case of a noun from the accusative case

Cases of the Russian language is a category of a word that shows its syntactic role in a sentence. Schoolchildren memorize the names of cases and their signs, that is, questions, but sometimes difficulties arise. For example, when you need to distinguish the genitive case from the accusative case.

You will need

  • Knowledge of the Russian language according to the school curriculum, nouns in the accusative and genitive cases,

Instructions

There are six: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional. To determine case, auxiliary words and questions are used. The spelling of the ending of the word depends on this. Very often they confuse the genitive (no: whom? what?) and the accusative (blame: whom? what?), since the questions to animate objects are asked the same: “who?”

Ask a question. If in doubt, ask the noun a qualifying question: “no what?” (for genitive) and "I see what?" (for accusative). If a word takes the form of the nominative case, it means that in this case it is accusative. For example: small fish (accusative: I see what? a fish, you can’t say: there’s nothing? a fish).

If you need to determine the case in order to place endings, substitute the word “cat” or any other word instead of the noun, but be sure to use the first one. Depending on the ending, determine the case. For example: pride in the teacher is the accusative case, because, substituting the word “cat” in place of the noun, we get: pride in the cat. The ending "u" indicates the accusative case. The ending "and" is in the genitive.

Analyze the relationship of words in. Genitive, as a rule, the relationship between a part and the whole (a glass of milk), belonging to something (a sister’s jacket), it is used in comparison (more beautiful than a queen). The accusative is used to convey spatio-temporal relations (work for a week), the transition from an action to an object (drive a car).

note

The accusative case denotes the complete coverage of the object by the action, a certain amount (drink milk), and the genitive case denotes the extension of the action to part of the object (drink milk).

Helpful advice

An inanimate noun in the accusative case does not change, unlike the same noun in the genitive case: I saw a house (accusative), there were no houses in the area (genitive)

Sources:

  • Page dedicated to the grammatical characteristics of a noun

Unlike the Finnish and Hungarian languages, in which there are one and a half to two dozen cases, in Russian grammar there are only six of them. The endings of words in different cases may be the same, so to determine the case, you need to ask the correct question about the word being checked.

Instructions

To determine the case of a noun, carefully read the phrase in which it appears. Find the word that the noun you are checking refers to - that’s why words you will ask a question. For example, you are given the phrase “I love dogs,” and you need to determine the case of the noun “dogs.” The word “dogs” in this sentence is subordinate to the word “love”. Therefore, you will ask a case question as follows: “I love whom?”

Each of the six cases has its own special question. So, in the nominative case they answer the question “who?” or “what?” The auxiliary word “is” can be substituted for this case. For example, there is (who?). The question of the genitive case is “who?” or “what?” The auxiliary word “no” can be substituted for the noun in this case. Dative to the question “to whom?/what?” and is combined with the auxiliary word “to give.” The question of the accusative case is “who?” or “what?”, and its auxiliary word is “blame.” Nouns in the instrumental case answer the question “by whom?/what?” and are combined with the words “created” and “pleased.” Finally, with the following questions: “about whom?/about what?”, “in whom?/in what?”. One of the auxiliary words of this case is the word “I think”.

To determine case, you first need to find the noun or pronoun to which it refers. Having determined the case of this main word, you will also recognize the case of the adjective, since they always agree in gender, number and case with those nouns () on which they depend. For example, “Kolya ate a big pear,” the noun “pear” is used in the accusative case, therefore the case of the adjective “big” related to it is also accusative.

A noun is a part of speech that designates a person or thing and answers the questions “who?” So what?". Nouns change according to cases, of which there are six in the Russian language. To prevent cases from being confused with each other, there is a strict system of rules and differences between them. To be able to correctly and quickly determine the accusative case, you need to know its questions and what it is used for.

Instructions

To never make a mistake with the case of a noun, remember that each of them has unique questions specific to it, by asking which you will receive the corresponding one. Accusative case questions are the question “I see who?” for the animate and “I see what?” for inanimate nouns.

In addition, learn the definitions of the accusative case of the Russian language, or, more precisely, the cases when it is used. So, the accusative case denotes the transfer of temporal and spatial relations (week, walk a kilometer); transition of the action entirely to the object (driving a car, leafing through a book). Very rarely the accusative case as a dependence on (offended for a friend).

However, even using rules or endings, it is sometimes very difficult to determine case, so always use special questions. In terms of its questions, the accusative case partially coincides with the genitive and nominative. In order not to confuse them, do the following: if in front of you, and it answers the question “who?”, which coincides with, substitute it in its place and ask a question to it. If the word answers the question “I see what?”, then you have the accusative case.

The grammar of the Russian language is incredibly vast and at the same time extremely complex. However, if you properly understand the topic that poses a problem for you, eventually everything will fall into place.

In this article we will talk about how to distinguish the accusative from the genitive, and about several more difficulties in declension of nouns and pronouns. Let's start with the basic concepts and rules.

The meaning of cases in Russian

To connect words in sentences, all independent parts of speech can take the necessary form: verbs change according to tenses, numbers, persons and voices, and nouns, numerals, adjectives, participles and pronouns - according to numbers and cases. This is how they carry out their task in sentences, but for this it is necessary to incline them correctly.

There are only 6 cases in the Russian language, each of them has auxiliary questions and its own endings. However, when choosing the latter, it is strictly necessary to take into account Plus, all adjectives, participles and numerals associated with the words of this part of speech also depend on it. Thus, in order to learn how to change all these morphological units by case, you first need to study this category in detail.

Declension

The constant features of nouns as parts of speech include gender (feminine, masculine, neuter), declension (1st, 2nd, 3rd, indeclinable and indeclinable words). You should also distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns, common and proper nouns. And it is on the second category that the change in cases depends, or rather the addition of the necessary ending.

You need to know that the first declension includes nouns of both masculine and feminine gender with the endings “-a” and “-ya”, for example, rainbow, fox, man. In the second - masculine words with a zero ending (son-in-law, genius, yogurt) and everything (window, grief, bed), and in the third - only those feminine words that end in “b” (mother, night, lynx). However, for case changes, the declension of nouns matters only in the singular, since in the plural all words of a given part of speech have the same endings (“-ы/-и, -а/-я”), for example, foxes, yoghurts, mothers, shores, anchors.

The role of cases

Each of the six cases in the Russian language has its own meaning and purpose of application in the text. Thus, with their help, words fulfill their syntactic role, forming a connection with in phrases.

Also, by case, you can determine which member of the sentence a given noun belongs to: if it is in the nominative case, it is the subject, if it is in the prepositional case and answers the question “Where?”, in the genitive (“from where?”) or in the accusative (“Where?” where?”) is a circumstance; in other cases it is an addition.

As for adjectives and participles, they, regardless of case, are definitions, just like quantitative ones. But quantitative ones are always circumstances with the meaning of measure and degree and answer the question “how much?”

Not subject to change by case

Indeclinable and indeclinable nouns require special attention. The first of these include words mainly borrowed from foreign languages. For example, casino, popsicle, muffler, flowerpot, coffee, etc. Their form is unchanged, that is, they cannot be declined by case, since their ending will remain the same. In this regard, the problem of how to distinguish the accusative from the genitive or which ending to choose when writing does not concern this category of words, and therefore they are easy to use in the text.

I. p.: What’s in the cup? - tasty coffee

R. p.: no what? - delicious coffee

D. p.: add to what? - to delicious coffee

V. p.: want what? - tasty coffee

T.p.: what does it smell like? - delicious coffee

P. p.: think about what? - about delicious coffee

Change by cases outside the rules of declension

However, significant difficulty is presented by inflexible words, there are only 11 of them (path + 10 on “-name”: seed, udder, burden, crown, stirrup, tribe, time, name, flame, banner). When they change by case, they take endings of different declensions. In addition, only a noun in the accusative case or nominative from a series of words starting with “-mya” does not require the addition of the suffix “-en” for singular declension. In other cases it is necessary.

However, this is precisely why the question of how to distinguish the accusative case from the genitive case does not concern heterodeclinable nouns, since their form is c. n. is identical to i. n. In the plural of the genitive case, the suffixes “-yon” (“names, tribes”) and “-yan” (“stirrups, seeds”) are added to them. It’s easier to remember this visually: from the attached photo “table of cases of differently indeclinable nouns.”

Main difficulty

To learn how to cope with the task of distinguishing the accusative case from the genitive case, you need to learn how to correctly ask questions about words and determine the morphological features of nouns. This will help you use a little trick by replacing difficult words with those that are clearly distinguished in these two cases, that is, with any example of the 1st declension.

So, if you see in the text an animate noun in the plural, then instead you should mentally use an inanimate noun in the same form. For example, “I see who? - people” (“I see what? - books” - since it is not a subject, it is not an ip. p., which means we choose a v. p.), “there is no one? - people” ( “no what? - books” - r.p.).

If the problem is an animate noun of the masculine gender of the 2nd declension, then substitute “mother” instead, and then ask questions of the accusative case and the genitive case. For example, do I see who? - donkey (I see who? - mom - v.p.), no one? - donkey (no one? - mothers - r.p.). A similar trick should be used to distinguish between accusative and genitive (personal and reflexive), and possessives should be declined based on the nouns associated with them.

How to distinguish the accusative case from the genitive case.

Genitive.

According to definitions, the genitive case means:

Belonging to someone or something, for example “an arctic fox skin”, “teacher’s journal”;

If there is a relationship between the whole and its part, for example, “magazine page (RP)”;

Displaying an attribute of an object in relation to another object, for example, “survey results (RP)”;

The object of influence in the presence of a verb with a negative particle “not”, for example, “does not eat meat (R.p.)”;

The object of influence in the presence of a verb denoting desire, intention or removal, for example,

“to wish happiness (R.p.)”, “to avoid responsibility (R.p.)”;

If there is a comparison of objects, for example, “stronger than oak (R.p.)”;

If the noun is the object of measurement, counting, or date genitive, such as "spoon

sour cream" or "Paris Commune Day".

Accusative.

The accusative case means:

Transition of action to the subject completely, for example, “leafing through a magazine,” “driving a car”;

Transfer of spatial and temporal relations “walk a mile”, “rest for a month”;

In rare cases, it is formed as a dependence on an adverb, for example, “it’s a shame for a friend.”

In order to never confuse the cases of a noun, it is important to remember that each case in Russian

corresponds to a universal question, asking which to a given noun, we ultimately get

corresponding case.

The genitive case corresponds to the question “there is no one?” for the animate and “no what?” For

inanimate

nouns

The accusative case corresponds to the question “I see who?” for the animate and “I see what?” For

inanimate nouns.

Determining the cases of nouns by their definitions or endings is extremely difficult.

Let's say

remembering all the definitions of the genitive and accusative cases is quite difficult. And the endings

nouns coincide quite often.

Here's an example using an animate plural noun:

I noticed people nearby. (I see who? - V.p.)

There were no people around. (there was no one? - R.p.)

As you can see, in both cases the word is declined the same way.

But, in order to finally make sure that the case is determined correctly, mentally substitute

instead of an animate noun, an inanimate one.

For example:

I noticed a pillar nearby. (I see who? - V.p.)

There were no pillars around. (there was no one? - R.p.)

The example shows: an inanimate noun in the accusative case does not change, unlike

the same noun having the genitive case.

From this we can draw conclusions:

1. To distinguish the genitive from the accusative, ask the noun a defining question.

2. If it is difficult for you to determine the case of an animate noun, because the question “who?” refers to

both cases, then substitute an inanimate noun instead and ask it

defining question. For the genitive it will be “no what?”, and for the accusative “I see what?”. If

the word will look like in the nominative case, then the case of your noun is accusative.

Helpful advice.

In the Russian language there are indeclinable nouns, for example, “coat”, “coffee”, when in any

case the word looks the same. In this case, case can only be determined by the key question.

The genitive case can also be determined using the test word "cat". Putting it in place

any noun specified word, pay attention to the ending. Example: instead of a word

“teacher” in the phrase “pride in the teacher”, substituting the test word, we get

the phrase “pride in the cat.” The ending “i” indicates the genitive case, the ending “u” indicates

accusative.

Remember that the genitive case always indicates the relationship between the whole and the part (a glass of water),

comparison with something or someone (prettier than Vasilisa) and belonging (brother’s motorcycle).

The accusative case describes and denotes time-spatial relations (wait a minute), and

also indicates a transition from an action to an object (petting a cat).

Source

E. I. Litnevskaya. Russian language: short theoretical course for schoolchildren.

Interesting article!!!

13 cases of the Russian language.