Not a single word of the Russian language in a sentence can exist independently. In order for a statement to make sense, it must have a connection between all its parts. This connection is called syntactic, which is formed using the case system of the Russian language. There are ten such cases, but six are taught at school, but in simple speech they are used in full, although they have a controversial case status.
The role of cases
How are words connected in a sentence? What parts of speech are inclined? How are new forms of the word formed? How to ask questions between proposal members? What are the case questions of adjectives, nouns, and other parts of speech? These and many other topics relating to this section of the Russian language are taught in schools starting from the third grade. In the Russian language, such parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective and numeral, change, or are inclined in cases. Moreover, this is expressed in a change in ending. And in order to determine the case of any of the words, they put a case question to it.
In fact, learning to understand this topic is not at all difficult. To do this, children are offered interesting and even funny rhymes, each word of which begins with the capital letter of the list of cases. For example: Ivan gave birth to a girl ordered to drag the diaper.
The case system of the Russian language
Depending on the functions performed, the noun may vary in cases. This process is called declension, and it is thanks to it that words in a sentence have a syntactic role and connection between themselves. Otherwise, it would be just a list of vocabulary. Here are the case questions of the Russian language that determine the role of a noun in a sentence:
Nominative, or Im. P. - master, house - who? what?
Genitive, or R. p. - masters, at home - whom? why?
Dative, or D. p. - to the master, at home - to whom? to what?
Accusative, or V. p. - masters, house - whom? what?
Creative, or T. p. - master, home - by whom? than?
Prepositional, or P. p. - about the master, about the house - about whom? about what?
All cases, except for the nominative, have the name "indirect" and can be used with or without preposition (this is the official part of speech that serves to clarify the meaning of the word). An exception here is only the prepositional case, which one of the entire list is used exclusively with a preposition.
The schoolchildren’s acquaintance with this system begins each time according to one pattern: first, the children are asked to determine the case question using the selection method, then the case name is voiced, and finally the role of the word in the sentence, namely, which member of the sentence it is, is primary or secondary.
Nominative
The main distinguishing feature here is that the word in the singular in the nominative case is always the initial form. In a sentence, whether singular or plural, such words always act as a grammatical basis, namely the subject.
For example: "A boy (case question - who?) Goes (what does?) To school." Here the phrase "the boy is coming" is the grammatical basis, and the word "boy" is in the nominative case.
But to make such a proposal, where the subject will not be in the nominative case, is simply impossible.
Genitive
The great difficulty here is that the table of case questions has similar interrogative words, in particular, this relates to the genitive and accusative cases. And here prepositions come to the rescue. So, the prepositions “without”, “y”, “before”, “from”, “from”, “for” are used only with words in R. p. As a rule, they are included in the question itself.
For instance:
- "Walks without slippers (without what?)."
- "Fish soup (what?)."
- "The girl came from her grandmother (from whom?)."
Dative
Here the definition of the word form is a little simpler, but there are both case and semantic questions. What does it mean?
For example: "Children are jumping along the corridor (why? - case question; where? - semantic)."
It is very important to distinguish between these types of questions, because, using the semantic form, it will not be possible to correctly determine the case.
It is also worth noting that the preposition “k” is used only with D. p., While “by” can occur with V. p., And D. p., And P. p.
Accusative
With this case form, some difficulties may also arise due to the questions that determine it. Because they are similar to the nominative and dative cases.
For example, you can take an interesting sentence, which sounds like this:
"The mouse saw the mouse." - This is about the mouse that saw the mouse, but which of the words will be subject? If we supplement this sentence, we get: "The mouse saw a mouse, chicken and duck." It immediately becomes clear which of the words is part of the grammatical basis. That is why in Russian most often the subject is faced by the predicate. So, it is clear that one of the words is in I. p., But how to determine the form of the second? Is it R. p. Or V. p.? And again you need to turn to reasoning. Here one should not take words out of context, one must raise the question directly from the predicate: - "The mouse saw (whom? What?) Mouse."
With the words in the accusative case such prepositions are used: “about”, “through”, “through”, “on”.
Instrumental case
As a rule, the words used in the instrumental case are directly related to the predicate and are used with the prepositions “above” and “c”. Therefore, the grammatical basis is first distinguished in the sentence, and then the case form of the secondary members is determined. However, it also happens that a sentence may be with an incomplete grammatical basis. And here it is important to capture the possible predicate from the context. For example: "A squirrel is friends with a bump, a cat with a mouse, and a bunny with grass."
The basis of the sentence is “squirrel is friends”, “cat” and “bunny” - it can be seen from the context that in all parts of this sentence one predicate can be used - “friends”. We pose the question “with whom?” From him. The word “with the mouse” and the word “with grass” answer the case questions.
Prepositional
This case has its own peculiarities: words are not used here without pretexts. There also pop up semantic questions that need to learn to weed out. For instance:
- "The boy painted (where? What?) In the album a tree."
- "Cucumbers grow (where? On what?) In the garden."
- "Wolves are found (where? What?) In the forests."
The question is always posed along with the preposition used in the sentence.
Other cases
In addition to the six main cases that are included in the school curriculum, there are so-called additional cases.
- Vocative, or vocative. As a rule, this form is used when referring to a person. For example: Anya - Im.p., and An - vocal. This case is not at all newly formed, and its forms have been preserved from ancient times until today in the words “Lord, God”, “older”, “father” and so on.
- Quantitatively, paritivistic, or second genitive. As a rule, in school all forms of this case are related to the genitive.
- Local or locative. This form is often replaced by a prepositional case, but in some cases they can be divided. For example: “about the cabinet” - what about? and "in the closet" - where?
- Original, or ablative. In this case, the noun denotes the place where the action or movement began and is distinguished from the local only by stress. For example: "left the forest."
The study of this material in the school curriculum is given special attention. And this is understandable: knowing the intricacies of the interconnection of words in a sentence, you can be sure of the literacy of speech, in the correctness of all endings. This will avoid many gross errors both in conversation and in writing, which is very important in our time of education and great technology.