Russian grammar employs an Indo-European inflectional structure, with considerable adaptation.
Russian has a highly inflectional morphology, particularly in nominals (nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals). Russian literary syntax is a combination of a Church Slavonic heritage, a variety of loaned and adopted constructs, and a standardized vernacular foundation.
The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one, with some additional characteristic forms. Russian dialects show various non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms discarded by the literary language.
Various terms are used to describe Russian grammar with the meaning they have in standard Russian discussions of historical grammar, as opposed to the meaning they have in descriptions of the English language; in particular, aorist, imperfect, etc., are considered verbal tenses, rather than aspects, because ancient examples of them are attested for both perfective and imperfective verbs. Russian also places the accusative case between the dative and the instrumental, and in the tables below, the accusative case appears between the nominative and genitive cases.
Nouns
Nominal declension involves six main casesnominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositionalin two numbers (singular and plural), and grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Up to ten additional cases are identified in linguistics textbooks, Zaliznyak A. A. "Русское именное словоизменение." Moscow.: Science, 1967 Uspenskij V. A. "К определению падежа по А. Н. Колмогорову // Бюллетень объединения по проблемам машинного перевода." Issue. 5. Moscow., 1957 online copy Klobukov E. V. "Семантика падежных форм в современном русском литературном языке. (Введение в методику позиционного анализа)" Moscow: Moscow State University Press, 1986. although all of them are either incomplete (do not apply to all nouns) or degenerate (appear identical to one of the six main cases) – the most recognized additional cases are locative, partitive and vocative. Old Russian also had a third number, the dual, but it has been lost except for its use in the nominative and accusative cases with the numbers 1½, 2, 3 and 4 (e.g. "an hour and a half", "two chairs"), where it is now reanalyzed as genitive singular.
Russian has some nouns that only appear in the singular form (singulare tantum), for example: , ; also, approximately 600 words appear only in the plural form (plurale tantum): , .
More often than in many other Indo-European languages, Russian noun cases may supplant the use of prepositions entirely. Furthermore, every preposition is exclusively used with a particular case (or cases). Their usage can be summarised as: nominative (): main subject; default case to use outside sentences (dictionary entries, signs, etc.); prepositions: '(what) kind of?'; : 'join the ranks of' (with plural nouns only); accusative (): direct object; some time expressions; prepositions indicating motion: 'into, in(ward)', 'onto (the top of)', 'behind, after', 'under'; other prepositions: 'about', 'over, through', 'through'; genitive (): possession – 'of' (genitive noun); numerals and quantifiers; negated verbs (which take direct objects in accusative) to indicate total absence; some time expressions; prepositions: 'without', 'instead of', 'near', 'around', 'ahead of', 'for', 'before', 'from', 'because of, from behind', 'from', 'except for', 'past by', 'near', 'after', 'against, opposite', 'among', 'by', 'near', 'along', 'out of, outside', 'inside'; verbs: 'afraid of', 'reach', 'avoid'; adjectives: 'full of' (genitive noun); dative (): indirect object – 'to' (dative noun); some time expressions; impersonal clauses: – 'I am cold', lit. "to_me (is) cold"; age statements: – 'I am 20 (years old)', lit. 'to_me (is) 20 years'; prepositions: 'on', 'to(wards)', 'thanks to'; auxiliaries: or 'need/must (to)', 'allowed', 'forbidden'; verbs: 'believe', 'help', 'advise', 'call', 'amaze (self)'; instrumental (): instrument used in the action or means by which action is carried out – 'by' (I. noun); logical subject of passive clause: – 'the letter was written by Ivan'; secondary direct object: – 'he is considered (to be) a student'; durational time expressions; verbs: 'interest (to be interested in)', 'use', 'occupy (to be preoccupied with)'; associates of connective verbs: 'be', 'became', 'remain', 'appear to be', 'turn out to be'; prepositions of position: 'behind', 'in front of', 'above', 'below', 'between', '(together) with'; adjective: 'pleased by'; prepositional (): prepositions of place: 'inside', 'on (top of)'; other prepositions: 'about', 'by/of/with'; Definite and indefinite articles (corresponding to 'the', 'a', 'an' in English) do not exist in the Russian language. The sense conveyed by such articles can be determined in Russian by context. However, Russian also utilizes other means of expressing whether a noun is definite or indefinite: The use of a direct object in the genitive instead of the accusative in negation signifies that the noun is indefinite, compare: ("I don't see a book" or "I don't see any books") and ("I don't see the book"). The same goes for certain verbs expressing a desire to achieve something: wait, wish, ask, want, etc. When the inanimate object is definite (certain, or at least expected), the accusative is used; when it is indefinite (uncertain), the genitive is used. Compare: ("I'm waiting for the bus", а specific, scheduled bus) and ("I'm waiting for a bus", any bus, if one will come). Жду звонка... The use of the numeral one sometimes signifies that the noun is indefinite, e.g.: – ("Why did you take so long?" – "Well, I met one [=a] friend and had to talk"). Word order may also be used for this purpose; compare ("Into the room rushed a boy") and ("The boy rushed into the room"). The plural form may signify indefiniteness: ("You can buy this in shops") vs. ("You can buy this in the shop").
The category of animacy is relevant in Russian nominal and adjectival declension.Cooljugator: The Smart Declinator in Russian nouns Specifically, the accusative has two possible forms in many paradigms, depending on the animacy of the referent. For animate referents (persons and animals), the accusative form is generally identical to the genitive form. For inanimate referents, the accusative form is identical to the nominative form. This principle is relevant for masculine singular nouns of the second declension (see below) and adjectives, and for all plural paradigms (with no gender distinction). In the tables below, this behavior is indicated by the abbreviation 'N or G' in the row corresponding to the accusative case.
Russian uses three declensions:(English) I. Pulkina, E. Zakhava-Nekrasova; Russian: A Practical Grammar with Exercises, (Москва, Русский язык, 1992), pps. 40-50. Translated from the Russian by V. Korotky The first declension is used for feminine nouns ending with / and some masculine nouns having the same form as those of feminine gender, such as (papa) or (uncle); also, common-gender nouns like (bully) are masculine or feminine depending on the person to which they refer. The second declension is used for most masculine and neuter nouns. The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in .
A group of irregular "different-declension nouns" (), consists of a few neuter nouns ending in (e.g. "time") and one masculine noun "way". However, these nouns and their forms have sufficient similarity with feminine third declension nouns that scholars such as LitnevskayaЕ. И. Литневская. Русский язык. Краткий теоретический курс для школьников БСМП "ЭЛЕКС-Альфа", 2000 consider them to be non-feminine forms of this declension.
Nouns ending with , , (not to be confused with nominalized adjectives) are written with instead of in prepositional (as this ending is never stressed, there is no difference in pronunciation): – "streaming – in lower streaming of a river". However, if words and represent a compound preposition meaning"while, during the time of"they are written with : "in a time of an hour". For nouns ending in , , or , using in the prepositional (where endings of some of them are stressed) is usually erroneous, but in poetic speech it may be acceptable (as we replace with for metric or rhyming purposes): (Fyodor Tyutchev).
First declension
Feminine and masculine nouns ending with а or vowel
singular plural nominative , , accusative , N or G genitive , ∅ , dative , , instrumental , , prepositional , ,
Second declension
Masculine nouns ending with a consonant sound
singular plural nominative ∅ /, , +-∅ , , accusative N or G genitive , , + /, , -∅ dative , , + , , instrumental , , , + , , prepositional , , + , , Some singular nouns denoting groups of people may include the suffix before ending.
Neuter nouns
singular plural nominative accusative N or G genitive ∅ , dative instrumental prepositional
Third declension
Feminine nouns ending with letter ь singular plural nominative accusative N or G genitive dative instrumental prepositional
Neuter nouns ending with мя
singular plural nominative accusative genitive dative instrumental prepositional
The noun путь "way, path" The noun путь is often regarded as the only third-declension masculine noun. singular plural nominative accusative genitive dative instrumental prepositional
Indeclinable nouns Some nouns (such as borrowings from other languages, abbreviations, etc.) are not modified when they change number and case. This occurs especially when the ending appears not to match any declension pattern in the appropriate gender. A few examples of indeclinable nouns are: Foreign words: ко́фе ("coffee", masculine in literary language, neuter in colloquial); пальто́ ("overcoat", neuter); бюро́ ("bureau, office, desk, writing-table"; neuter); Abbreviations: СССР ([ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr] "USSR", masculine); США ([sɛ ʂɛ ˈa] or [sɨ ʂ(ɨ) ˈa], "USA", plural).
Additional cases Some nouns use several additional cases. The most important of these are: Locative (): the most common minor case, used with some nouns after the prepositions of location and . With most nouns, the prepositional form is used in such instances. When there is a distinct locative, it takes the form of the dative ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. A few feminine nouns ending in have a locative form of independent origin, consisting of the singular genitive/dative/prepositional ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. This may mean it matches the dative, or it may take a unique form. For example, in ("in the mouth") and ("in the chest"), the locatives of ("mouth") and match the dative forms and (modern) . In the case of , this differs from the prepositional , but in the case of the prepositional (and all other singular oblique cases besides instrumental) have merged with the locative. In ("in the forest") and ("in view (of)"), the locatives of ("forest") and ("link, connection") differ from both the prepositional and and the dative and (the dative and locative of are spelt identically but pronounced differently). Partitive (), or second genitive: sometimes used instead of the accusative (as it should be for the direct object) to imply, that only part of the object is affected by the verb: "to pour some tea" (not all the tea) — from "to pour the tea". This form may be also used after nouns meaning quantity: "a cup of tea" (also with the standard genitive).