Comments:

1. 

    

   Marcus:

   Какая связь между непереходными глаголами и родительным падежом? Почему не дательным? Помочь кому-то, например. Не творительным? Восхищаться чем-то. Бежать чего? Чему? и т. д. Переходный глагол по определению управляет винительным падежом без предлога, но непереходный может управлять чем угодно или не управлять ничем. Причем тут именно родительный падеж? Что в нем особенного?

2. 

    

   yelena:

   Marcus, a while ago we had a post with a joke. And in that joke was a line “и чего сказала” (here’s a link to the original post – http://tinyurl.com/9lrj3f7). One of our readers asked why it was чего instead of что. A day or two later I was at a friend’s house and she asked ты хочешь печенье (would you like a cookie). So I got to thinking about it and decided to explore the accusative v genitive case usage some more (in a more academic way, since I never paid much attention in my Russian language classes). Which led me to transitive v intransitive verbs. Which seemed interesting enough to be written about on the blog. Besides, I love answering questions readers leave in the comments 🙂 Sometimes the answers are short and can be kept as comments. Other times they are quite involved and (I feel) can benefit others. So I do them as posts.

3. 

    

   David Roberts:

   Извините товарищи, я знаю что это не “Британский Блог”, а:

   <> is an example of USA and UK being two nations divided by a common language. In UK, to wash up means мыть посуда, never мыть руки (one’s own or anyone else’s). [Maybe this meaning has died out in USA because nobody washes the dishes by hand?].

   Another example, allegedly a true experience of one of my former work colleagues:

   Young UK male working in USA comes out of his flat (apartment) late one evening, crosses the corridor and raps on the door of the apartment opposite. After a minute or two, sleepy young woman in dressing gown answers the door, he asks her if he can borrow some sugar for his coffee, she gives him some, he goes back to his own apartment. Next morning at work he sees her in a meeting and in front of all present says to her “Sorry for knocking you up last night”.

4. 

    

   yelena:

   David, you’re right and I should’ve checked it. My first thought was to put “to bathe” there, but then I changed it to “wash up” for no apparent reason 🙂 Gonna change it back 🙂

5. 

    

   Rob:

   … two nations divided by a common language. In UK, to wash up means мыть посуда, never мыть руки

   When I was teaching English in Moscow in 1993 and sharing an apartment with two other Americans, one of us bought a bottle of “Ultra-Fairy Washing-Up Liquid” at a kiosk.

   And needless to say, we kept the plastic bottle as a sort of objet d’art long after it was empty, because “Ultra-Fairy Washing-Up Liquid” simply doesn’t exist in the US, for more than one reason! (My roommate Sarah was dating a British expat guy, and he indulgently said, “Yes, ha-ha, I get it” whenever one of us silly Yanks would laugh over the “Ultra Fairy” bottle.)

   Incidentally, the quality of отечественные detergents and soaps at that time was depressingly horrible, so foreign expats and natives alike preferred to buy зарубежные versions whenever possible. Most often they were of German or Turkish origin, as I recall, but sometimes you’d find UK imports in the kiosks.

   • 

      

     yelena:

     @Rob Haha, so true! I still remember the horrid smells and feel of a bar of хозяйственное мыло (household soap)!

6. 

    

   Rob:

   Лужков заявил, что его “ушли”

   Hmmmm… would it be possible to interpret “ушли” here as an imperative singular of услать (“to send away”), rather than the past plural of уйти? In other words, Luzhkov is claiming that Mr. A delegated the responsibility of firing him to Mr. B, with the words «Ушли Лужкова!», “Send Luzhkov away!”

   Or is this just not plausible?

   • 

      

     yelena:

     @Rob No, not in this case. The headline does not reflect it. Besides, услать is not a very common form of “to send away”, to my knowledge. Instead, a form отослать or even послать would be used and the imperative singular would be отошли or пошли, respectively. If ушли would’ve been a form of услать, indirect speech would be used to avoid ambiguity.

7. 

    

   Rob:

   my child loves nothing more than, as he says it, проснуть маму, instead of разбудить маму (to wake up mom) at the crack of dawn.

   Hmmm, I wonder if that’s an example of a “Runglishism” (in this case, spontaneously invented by your son), or if a kid growing up in Russia without exposure to English would make a similar error?

   • 

      

     yelena:

     @Rob I wouldn’t say it’s a “Runglishism” (love the coinage, by the way). I mean, if he’d say something like вейкать маму using a russified version of the verb “to wake”, then yes. The other example I gave, where a child used the word смеять instead of смешить came from a child who was born in Russia and spent the first couple of years there and only a few months in the US.

8. 

    

   Marcus:

   переходный глагол, по определению, – это глагол, который управляет или может управлять винительным падежом без предлога. Соответственно, непереходный – это любой другой глагол. Из того, что он непереходный, никак не следует его сочетаемость с родительным падежом.

9. 

    

   yelena:

   Yes, Marcus, you are right. You are giving a textbook definition of a transitive verb. But this blog is not a textbook for learning Russian. I am not going to claim deep enough understanding of why Russian grammar works the way it does besides most textbooks are immensely boring. I do not write about grammar very often, but when I do see a grammar-related question from a reader, I try to answer it. In this case, the question was precisely why genitive case was used in a sentence instead of accusative. That’s why I limited my post to just those two cases and how they relate to transitive/intransitive verbs. I also wanted to explore the quirky side of it – when Russian speakers use intransitive verbs as if they were transitive. Maybe I’m going to start putting a disclaimer at the beginning of my posts.

10. 

     

    Sarah:

    I have one. Why are both of these sentences correct?

    Не понял вопрос

    Не понимаю вопроса

    The only difference should be the tense. Nothing else changes, not even the meaning as far as I can see. So why isn’t it вопрос in both places?

    Thanks

    • 

       

      yelena:

      @Sarah Sarah, this is such an awesome question! I’m very glad you brought it up? The tense doesn’t really matter here. The negation does. In this particular case both sentences are correct. And yes, you can use вопрос in both cases just as you can use вопроса in both cases. Marcus provided a very concise “in a nutshell” explanation.

11. 

     

    Marcus:

    Because gen. can be used instead of acc. in negative sentences.