Comments:

1. 

    

   David Roberts:

   Very good post! Another “borderline” situation – in children’s stories inanimate things are sometimes treated as animate, e.g. Thomas the tank engine, a railway locomotive who holds conversations with other locomotives, with tractors, buses etc (I don’t know if these stories are known in USA, they are almost a British institution). If you were to tell these stories in Russina, would locomotives, tractors etc be treated as animate?

   • 

      

     Maria:

     @David Roberts Thank you, David. I believe it’s known in the US as “Thomas the Train.” In any case, apparently it’s known in Russia, as well, as Паровозик Томас: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQknDfGUYBc.
     I was able to find examples of “паровозика Томаса” (http://lenta.ru/news/2011/06/09/thomas/), so it looks like it is treated as an animate noun!

2. 

    

   Moonyeen Albrecht:

   Good blog. I just have one comment and it is this sentence: “Animate nouns are identical in accusative and genitive, while inanimate nouns are identical in accusative and nominative.”

   I think it would be clearer and more correct to insert the word “Masculine” at the beginning of the sentence. When I first read this I had to read it several times to see if I read what I thought I read. Feminine nouns in the singular, of course, do not follow this rule. It is corrected later in the blog but it could cause some confusion for beginners. The other solution is to clarify that this statement is true of both masculine and feminine nouns in the plural but only to masculine nouns in the singular. Other than that . . . good blog.

   I remember when I first started studying Russian I used the word for finger as animate because I thought it was “part of a living person.” I learned that lesson early!

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     Maria:

     @Moonyeen Albrecht Good point, Moonyeen. I have changed the description to say it applied to plural accusative forms across the board, and only affected masculine nouns in the singular.
     Right, this is not straightforward at all, although it is fascinating to learn what the language “sees” as living.

3. 

    

   Richard:

   Okay, suppose a robotic shrimp is chasing an oyster from outer space which is swallowed by a dead body which in turn is controlled by a hyper-intelligent embryo which needs the oyster partly as food and partly as an animal in a scientific experiment?

   I’m sorry, it’s the eggnog talking! 8*)

   С Рождеством!!!

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     Maria:

     @Richard Haha, that was a good one. Luckily, with the shrimp, you have options. 🙂
     С Рождеством и наступающим Новым годом!

4. 

    

   Peter:

   Thanks Maria for a great blog.

   It’s probably obvious to many but fruit, vegetables and flowers are living but not sentient, so I presume they are treated as inanimate? However, a researcher has found that plants have memory, so that may change!

   And what about inanimate things that are commonly given the attributes of animate things, such as how sailors refer to their ships?

   Peter.

5. 

    

   Peter:

   Oh … I’ve now looked at the Moskovskie Novosti article you cited. I guess they are animate, like billiard players talk about their balls (no double-entendre intended ;-).

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     Maria:

     @Peter You’re welcome, Peter! People certainly often see inanimate objects as animate, so you can see inanimate objects talking and walking, for example, in fiction or fairy tales. However, grammatically, most of these nouns will still decline as inanimate. The шар example sounds like professional jargon for pool players. I have looked for “корабль” (ship) in the Russian National Corpus, and only got корабль and корабли in the accusative (as opposed to корабля and кораблей), so it appears that it is still declined as an inanimate object.

6. 

    

   Moonyeen Albrecht:

   Ooops! If the correction now says that it applies to accusative plurals across the board doesn’t that have to be clarified as plural accusative ANIMATE across the board. Sorry if I get so nit-picky. It’s still a good blog and has obviously created a lot of interest. Proof you have a good, responsive reading audience. С Новым годом!