Russian declension of personal pronouns

Jump to navigation Jump to search In Russian grammar, the system of declension is elaborate and complex. Note: In the tables below, the Accusative case appears between the Nominative and Genitive cases. Russian practice places the Accusative between the Dative russian declension of personal pronouns the Instrumental.

See Russian version of this page. The adjectives, pronouns, and the first two cardinal numbers further vary by gender. Russian noun cases often replace the usage of prepositions in Indo-European languages. The sense of a noun is determined from the context in which it appears. That said, there are some means of expressing whether a noun is definite or indefinite.

The use of the numeral one sometimes signifies that the noun is indefinite, e. Why did it take you so long? The category of animacy is relevant in Russian nominal and adjectival declension. Specifically, the accusative has two possible forms in many paradigms, depending on the animacy of the referent. The second declension is used for most masculine and neuter nouns. The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in ь. However, these nouns and their forms have sufficient similarity with feminine third declension nouns that some scholars such as Litnevskaya consider them to be non-feminine forms of this declension, as written in the tables below.

Most first-declension nouns are feminine, some masculine. The same endings apply for both genders. The third declension is mostly for feminine nouns, with some masculine and neuter. There are various kinds of irregularities in forming plurals. Some words have an irregular plural form, but a few use suppletion, being substituted by a different root altogether. Historically, some of these irregularities come from older declensional patterns that have become mostly obsolete in modern Russian.