Case is a form of education and a function of a word, endowing words with certain syntactic roles in a sentence, a link between the individual parts of a sentence's speech. Other definition of case is the declension of words, parts of speech, characterized by a change in their endings.
Perfectly mastering the ability to decline different parts of speech in cases is hallmark literate, educated person. Often, the school curriculum, which explains in detail the cases of the Russian language, is forgotten after a few years, which leads to the grossest mistakes in drawing up the correct structure of the sentence, which is why the members of the sentence become inconsistent with each other.
An example of an irregular declension of a word
To understand what is at stake, it is necessary to consider an example showing the incorrect use of the case form of a word.
- The apples were so beautiful that I wanted to eat them right away. Their shiny red skin hid their juicy flesh, promising a truly amazing taste experience.
There is an error in the second sentence, indicating that the cases of nouns in Russian are safely forgotten, so the word "taste" has the wrong declension.
The correct variant would be to write the sentence as follows:
- Their shiny red skin hid their juicy flesh, promising a truly amazing delight in (what?) taste.
How many cases in the Russian language, so many forms of changing the endings of words that determine the correct use of not only the case form, but also the number, gender.
I wonder what percentage of adults not involved in writing, editorial, educational or scientific activity, remembers how many cases there are in Russian?
The disappointing results of this year's Total Dictation leave much to be desired, showing the insufficient level of literacy for most of the population. Only 2% of all participants wrote it without a single mistake, receiving a well-deserved "five".
The largest number of errors were found in the placement of punctuation marks, and not in the correct spelling of words, which makes the results not so deplorable. With the correct spelling of words, people do not experience any special problems.
And for their correct declension in a sentence, it is worth remembering the names of the cases, as well as what questions the word answers in each specific case form. By the way, the number of cases in Russian is six.
Brief description of cases
The nominative case most often characterizes the subject or other main parts of the sentence. It is the only one always used without prepositions.
The genitive case characterizes belonging or kinship, sometimes other relationships.
The dative case defines a period that symbolizes the end of an action.
The accusative case is a designation of the immediate object of the action.
The instrumental case denotes the instrument with which an action is performed.
The prepositional case is used only with prepositions, indicates a place of action or points to an object. Some linguists tend to divide the prepositional case into two types:
- explanatory, answering the questions “about whom?”, “About what?” (characterizing the subject of mental activity, story, narration);
- local, answering the question "where?" (directly the area or the hour of the action).
But in modern educational science Nevertheless, it is customary to distinguish six main cases.
There are cases of Russian adjectives and nouns. Word declension applies to both singular and plural.
Cases of Russian nouns
A noun is a part of speech denoting the name of objects, acting in a sentence as a subject or object, answering the question "who?" or "what?".
The variety of ways of declension of words makes the multifaceted and rich Russian language difficult for foreigners to perceive. Cases of nouns inflect a word by changing its ending.
Case forms of nouns can change endings, answering questions:
- regarding animate subjects - “whom?”, “to whom?”;
- inanimate objects - “what?”, “what?”.
Cases | Questions | Examples of changing endings | Prepositions |
Nominative | boy(), ball() | ||
Genitive | Whom? What? | Boy(s), ball(s) | |
Dative | To whom? What? | Boy(s), ball(s) | |
Accusative | Whom? What? | Boy(s), ball() | On, for, through, about |
Instrumental | Boy(om), ball(om) | For, under, over, before, with |
|
Prepositional | About whom? About what? | Boy(s), ball(s) | Oh, on, in, about, at, about |
Indeclinable nouns
There are nouns that are used in any case without declension endings and do not form a plural. These are the words:
- kangaroo, taxi, subway, flamingos;
- some proper names of foreign origin (Dante, Oslo, Shaw, Dumas);
- common foreign nouns (Madame, Mrs., Mademoiselle);
- Russian and Ukrainian surnames (Dolgikh, Sedykh, Grishchenko, Stetsko);
- complex abbreviations (USA, USSR, FBI);
- surnames of women denoting male objects (Alisa Zhuk, Maria Krol).
Changing adjectives
adjectives - independent part speech, denoting the signs and characteristics of the object, answering the questions “what?”, “what?”, “what?”. In a sentence, it acts as a definition, sometimes a predicate.
Just like a noun, it is declined in cases by changing endings. Examples are shown in the table.
Cases | Questions |
| Prepositions |
Nominative | |||
Genitive | Whom? What? | Good | From, without, at, to, near, for, around |
Dative | To whom? What? | Good | |
Accusative | Whom? What? | Good | On, for, through, about |
Instrumental | For, under, over, before, with |
||
Prepositional | About whom? About what? | Oh, on, in, about, at, about |
Non-inflected adjectives
Cases of the Russian language are able to change all adjectives if they are not presented in short form answering the question "what?". These adjectives in the sentence act as a predicate and are not declined. For example: He is smart.
Plural cases
Nouns and adjectives can be in the singular and plural, which also reflect the cases of the Russian language.
The plural is formed by changing the ending, declension of words depending on the question that the case form answers, with or without the same prepositions.
Cases | Questions | Examples of changing the endings of nouns | Examples of changing the endings of adjectives | Prepositions |
Nominative | Boy(s), ball(s) | Good(s), red(s) | ||
Genitive | Whom? What? | Boy(s), ball(s) | Good(s), red(s) | From, without, at, to, near, for, around |
Dative | To whom? What? | Boy(s), ball(s) | Good, red | |
Accusative | Whom? What? | Boy(s), ball(s) | good(s), red(s) | On, for, through, about |
Instrumental | Boy(s), ball(s) | Good (s), red (s) | For, under, over, before, with |
|
Prepositional | About whom? About what? | Boy(s), ball(s) | Good(s), red(s) | Oh, on, in, about, at, about |
Features of the genitive and accusative cases
Some people find it difficult and somewhat confusing to have two cases with seemingly identical questions that the inflected word answers: the genitive case and the question “who?”, and the accusative case with the question “who?”.
For ease of understanding, it should be remembered that in the genitive case the inflected word answers the following questions:
- there was no “who?” at the party (Paul), "what?" (champagne);
- there was no “who?” in the store (seller), "what?" (of bread);
- there was no “who?” in the prison cell (prisoner), "what?" (beds).
That is, the case indicates the ownership of the object, focusing on the event itself, and not on the subject.
In the accusative case, the same phrases would sound as follows:
- brought to the party "who?" (Paul), "what?" (champagne);
- they didn’t bring “who?” to the store (salesperson) "what?" (bread);
- in the prison cell they did not find “who?” (prisoner) "what?" (bed).
The case refers directly to the object around which the action is performed.
The ability to correctly inflect various parts of speech according to cases, number, gender is a hallmark of a smart, literate person who highly appreciates the Russian language and its basic rules. The desire for knowledge, repetition and improvement of knowledge is a hallmark of a highly intelligent person capable of self-organization.
For coherent speech in Russian, the same words can be used in different forms, it can be the only one or plural, female, male or neuter gender, as well as declensions with changing endings. And it is cases that play a particularly important role in the construction of true statements, which show the syntactic role and connection of words in a sentence. Pronouns and numerals are subject to declension. And in the study of the Russian language, it is very important to learn to determine the case form of these parts of speech and to know what questions the cases answer.
The main cases of the Russian language
The case system of the Russian language is quite simple to learn, but it has several features. Therefore, a huge amount of time is devoted to this topic in the school curriculum. First of all, children are introduced to what questions the cases answer and what they are called. As a rule, only six main cases are presented to the attention of schoolchildren, although in fact there are many more of them, however, due to the close similarity, varieties of obsolete case forms were combined with the main ones. Although there are still disputes among linguists about this.
Nominative case
The nominative case in abbreviated form is written by Him. n. Questions of the nominative case - who? and what? For all parts of speech, this is the initial one and can be the name of an object, person or natural phenomenon, and in a sentence it always acts as a subject. For example:
The girl came out rooms - sun sat over the horizon.
also in nominative case can be the nominal part of the compound predicate. For example:
Nikita - my son - Alexander Vasilievich - director.
Also always in the nominative case main member and appeal. For example:
Noise, noise, reeds - Here is an old house.
Genitive
The use of the genitive case can be both after verbs and after names. Words with this declension answer questions whom? what? In abbreviated form, it is written R.p.
This form of words has a variety of meanings and syntactic uses. The verbal genitive case can indicate the subject:
- in the case when the verb has a negation: do not take off your head, do not tell the truth -
- if the action does not refer to the whole object, but only to its part: drink water, eat soup, chop wood.
The adjective genitive can indicate a number of relationships:
- belonging to someone or something: mother's house, doll dress-
- relation of a whole to a part: hotel room, tree branch-
- evaluation or definition of qualities: green cap, tears of happiness, man of the word.
That is why, in order to correctly determine the case form, it is very important to know what questions the cases answer.
Nouns used in the genitive case together with adjectives of comparison indicate the object or person with which they are compared. For example:
More beautiful than Natasha, whiter than snow, faster than lightning.
Dative
To understand how to use a word in a particular case, you need to clearly know what questions the cases answer, in which case a certain form of declension is used. For example, the dative case (to whom; to what?) words are most often placed after verbs and only in a few cases after words denoting objects.
Mostly the words in this case are used to designate the main subject to which the action is directed.
For example:
Say hello to a friend, threaten an enemy, an order to subordinates.
AT impersonal sentences words in the dative case can be used as a predicate. For example:
Sasha was scared. The boy was cold. The patient is getting worse.
Accusative
Questions of the accusative case are similar to questions of other cases, namely, the genitive and nominative. So, for an animated object, this is a question whom? and to the inanimate - what? And quite often, schoolchildren confuse this case with the nominative, therefore, for a correct definition, first of all, it is necessary to highlight the grammatical basis in the sentence. Words in this case form are most often used with verbs and denote the object to which the action completely passes.
For example:
Fishing, cleaning shoes, sewing a skirt, baking a cake.
Also, words standing in can express quantity, time, space and distance. For example:
All summer, every minute, every year.
Instrumental case
Just like other case forms, instrumental questions have two forms for living and non-living things. These are special questions that cannot be confused with other forms. So, for an animated object, the instrumental case answers the question by whom? For example:
He knew (who?) Oksana and (who?) her mother.
For an inanimate object, the instrumental case answers the question how? For example:
He fed (what?) Bread, gave him water (what?) to drink.
As a rule, this form of words is used in combination with verbs closely related to names.
Such a case form of words with verbs always acts as a means and instrument of action, can be an image or mode of action, and also have the meanings of time, place, space, and who performs the action. For example:
He beat the dog (with what?) with a stick.
The old man propped himself (with what?) on his palm.
The road led (with what?) through the forest.
The fairy tales "Aibolit", "Confusion" and "Cockroach" were written (by whom?) by Korney Chukovsky.
Also, this case form of words can also occur with names and have the following meanings. With nouns:
- instrument of action: beat with a hand, brush with a brush -
- actor: security of the house by watchmen, release of goods by the seller -
- the content of the action itself: learn German language
- definitive value: sausage with a ring, bass singing.
With adjectives, words in the instrumental case are used with the meaning of restriction specified sign. For example:
He was strong-minded and known for his discoveries.
Prepositional
The sixth and last case that is studied in the school curriculum is prepositional.
Questions of the prepositional case, as well as other case forms, are divided towards living objects (on whom? about whom?) and inanimate (on what? about what?). Words in this case are always used with prepositions, hence the name of the case itself. Depending on the preposition used, the meaning also changes, questions of the prepositional case are always built using the same prepositions that are used in specific cases in the context.
Using prepositions with words in the prepositional case
To correctly determine the case form of words and correct use them in speech it is very important to know how cases are connected with questions and prepositions when used various forms words in sentences.
Each of the prepositions used gives the word its own meaning:
What role do cases, questions and prepositions play?
The table of prepositions that are used in combination with various case forms of words plays a huge role in the study of the case system of the Russian language.
After all, it is they who, by joining nouns, can reveal various meanings the same word.
| case | Pretext | Meaning | Example |
| Genitive | around, because of, before, at | determine the space in which the object is located or in which the action takes place | walk around the park left the house, stand by the tree |
| Dative | to, by | used to indicate approaching an object, object or place of event | approach a friend go off-road |
| Accusative | in, for, on | indicate which object the action is directed to | hug your waist, look out the window put on the table |
| Instrumental | under, behind, over, with | can have many meanings, including indicating the direction of a particular action and denoting a space | fly over the earth walk under the bridge be friends with grandma |
Declension of nouns, adjectives and numerals by cases
One of the main topics of this section of the Russian language is the topic: "Declination by cases". As a result of such a change, the word is transformed, acquiring a new ending, which is quite important for the correct construction of speech. Declension occurs by changing the word so that it answers the questions of each case. The declension of nouns has an independent character, while adjectives and numerals in the context always depend on the case in which the word associated with them stands.
In the case of declension of numerals, the question can also be modified, as for an adjective, which makes it easier to decline the word.
| case | case question | Question for the numeral | numeral |
| Nominative | who? what? | How many? which? | |
| Genitive | whom? what? | how many? what? | eighth eighth |
| Dative | to whom? what? | how many? what? | eighth |
| Accusative | whom? what? | How many? what? | eighth eighth |
| Instrumental | by whom? how? | how many? what? | |
| Prepositional | about whom? about what? | about how many? about what? | about the eighth about the eighth about the eighth |
The purpose of the school curriculum is to teach children not only to correctly determine the case form of words in a particular sentence, but also to be able to correctly use a preposition that will fully reveal the meaning of the statement. Such skills are very important for the construction of competent speech. That is why special attention is paid to this topic and a sufficient number of Russian language lessons so that children can not only study, but consolidate this material well.
Attention, only TODAY!
- Which case answers the question: "What kind?" and why is knowledge of the declension of adjectives so important?
- "Whom", "what" - which case? Cases and their questions
Parts of speech are studied in primary school. Some of them are combined into special groups on special grounds. The pronoun, the numeral, the noun and the adjective are included in the group of inflected parts of speech, that is, they change in numbers and cases. You need to understand what declension is in order to correctly write the endings of the forms of one word that changes in cases.
How to determine the case of a noun - learning to determine the declension
The Russian language divides all nouns into 3 declensions:
- Type 1 - words m.r. and f.r. ending in -a or -я. For example, rainbow, road, snake, track.
- Type 2 - words m.r. and cf., ending in -o or -e or having a zero ending. For example, education, house, oatmeal.
- Type 3 - words of female language ending in a soft sign. They have a null ending. For example, doe, tribute, spruce, night.
Words of the same type of declension have the same endings when changing in cases. So when there are doubts about spelling case endings, you need to look at the change rules for the entire declension group to which the word belongs.
How to determine the case of a noun - features of cases
- We ask the question to the noun from those members of the sentence with which it is associated.
- Nominative case - questions who? what? For example, healer, forest. You can use an additional word: ( there is) who? – medicine man, (is) what? - forest.
- Questions whom? what? answers the genitive case with an additional word No. For example, ( no) who? - medicine man, (no) what? - the woods.
- Dative. Questions about the noun to whom? what? with an added word to give. For example, (give) to whom? - healer, (give) what? – forest.
- Accusative. Using questions whom? what? with an added word see. For example, ( see who? - healer, (see) what? - forest.
- Instrumental. Asking questions by whom? how?. You can use an additional word admire. For example, ( admire) who? - a healer, (admire) what? - forest.
- Last, Prepositional, answers questions about whom? about what? with the help of a word think. For example, who to think about? - sorcerer, think about what? - forest.
How to determine the case of a noun - how to distinguish the Nominative from the Accusative
Some forms of the Nominative and Accusative sometimes overlap because they answer the same question. what?
Consider suggestions:
- The snow was falling in big flakes.
- When we went outside, we saw snow.
Word snow answers the question what? in both sentences, has the same form, but different syntactic meaning.
In the first case, snow is the subject, in the second, the circumstance. That is snow performs the action in the first sentence, and in the second the action is performed on it.
Noun snow in 1 sentence is in the Nominative case, in 2 - in the Accusative.
We examined the questions and auxiliary words of each of the cases. We considered the case of the coincidence of the word forms of the Nominative and Accusative cases. We analyzed how the syntactic role helps to determine the case in case of difficulties.
Cases of nouns.
The Russian language is hard to imagine without cases. They help us to speak, write and read correctly.
Total in Russian modern language there are six cases, each case has its own question and its own ending.
In order to make it more clear, we will consider each case separately, and also analyze what questions the cases answer.
Nominative case is the only case in Russian, the question of which is answered by the subject.
Genitive case determines belonging, kinship and some other relationships.
Dative case defines the exact end point of the action of the addressee of the message.
Accusative case denotes the immediate object of the action.
Instrumental case determines the instrument, some types of temporal belonging.
Prepositional the case can be represented as a question: “Who are you thinking about, what?”.
Nominative case answers the questions "Who? ", "what? »
Auxiliary word " there is"
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| Who? Dog | What? Book | What? Sea |
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| Who? Human | Who? Children | What? Forest |
Genitive case answers the questions “who? ", "what? »
Auxiliary word " No"Prepositions: from, to, from, without,at, for, around,beside, beside.
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| Whom? wolf | What? Stola | Whom? Natasha |
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| What? Toys | What? swamps | Whom? student |
Dative case answers the questions “to whom? "," what? »
Auxiliary word " ladies"Prepositions: to, by.
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| To whom? Athlete | What? Gingerbread | To whom? grandmother |
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 |
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| What? road | What? field | To whom? Schoolgirl |
Accusative case answers the questions “who? ", "what? »
Auxiliary word " see"Prepositions: in, on, for, about,through.
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| Whom? bird | What? Beach | What? roof |
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| Whom? shark | Whom? doctor | What? reeds |
Instrumental case answers the questions "by whom? ", "how? »
Auxiliary word " I create"Prepositions: under, over, behind, with,before, between.
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| By whom? as a child | How? home | How? bed |
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| By whom? Bear | By whom? teacher | How? puddle |
Prepositional case answers the questions “about whom? ", "about what? »
Auxiliary word " think"Prepositions: in, on, oh, oh, at.
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| About whom? (O) Mom |
About what? (O) Tractor |
About what? (O) Mathematics |
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| About whom? (O) giraffe |
About whom? (O) dad |
About whom? (O) Mouse |
In the nominative case, the noun is in the sentence subject.
In the morning Tanya(I. p.) went to the window.
To determine the case of other nouns, you need to:
a) find the word with which this noun is connected in meaning and put a case question from it;
b) on the case issue, determine the case of the noun.
The sparrow thumped the glass with its beak.
pounded(what?) beak (T.p.)
Knocked (on what?) on the glass (D.p.)
Three declensions of nouns.
Feminine, masculine, and neuter nouns have different case endings.
By endings, nouns are divided into three declensions.
To determine the declension of a noun, you need:
- Determine the gender of the noun
- Select ending in initial form
To 1st declension include feminine and masculine nouns with the endings -а, -я in the nominative case ( winters a, grandfather a, one hundred I
).
Co. 2nd declension are masculine nouns with zero ending in the nominative case and neuter with endings -about, -e in the nominative case ( table, rain, sparrow her, floor e, sea e ).
To 3rd declension include nouns female With soft sign at the end and with a null ending in the nominative case ( horse, night, spruce).
To determine the declension of a noun in the oblique case, you need to find its initial form.
