Genitive case. Plural nouns

  1. To form the genitive plural you need to look at the nominative singular form of the noun.
  2. Masculine and feminine nouns that end in a soft sign () will have the ending -eй in the genitive plural:
    gendersingularplural
    masc учительучителей
    портфельпортфелей
    femплощадьплощадей
    кроватькроватей
  3. The ending -eй is also taken by nouns that end in the consonants ж, ш, ч, щ:
    singularplural
    карандашкарандашей
    врачврачей
    этажэтажей
    товарищтоварищей
  4. The ending -eй is also taken by soft stem neuter nouns (nouns that end in a consonant and -e):
    singularplural
    мореморей
    полеполей
  5. Masculine and feminine nouns that end in a vowel (-a, -я), neuter nouns that end in -o, and nouns with the suffix -ин, form the genitive plural by dropping the last vowel or suffix. Sometime this is called zero ending:
    gendersingularplural
    masculineколлегаколлег
    мужчинамужчин
    feminineкнигакниг
    газетагазет
    neuterяблокояблок
    письмописем
    -инангличанинангличан
  6. Nouns that end in preserve the softness of the last consonant in the genitive plural by adding the soft sign ():
    singularplural
    неделянедель
    героинягероинь
  7. Nouns that end in -ия, -ие and -eя will add the consonant after dropping the last vowel:
    singularplural
    фамилияфамилий
    лабораториялабораторий
    идеяидей
    общежитиеобщежитий
  8. Masculine nouns that end in a hard consonant will have the ending -ов in the genitive plural:
    singularplural
    журналжурналов
    городгородов
  9. Masculine nouns that end in the consonant will have the ending -ев in the genitive plural:
    singularplural
    музеймузеев
    трамвайтрамваев
  10. Remember to follow Spelling rule 3 when working with nouns that end in the consonant :
    singularplural
    unaccentedмесяцмесяцев
    accentedотецотцов
  11. Nouns that have an extended stem in the plural form the genitive plural from the extended stem:
    nom. sg.nom. pl.gen. pl.
    братбратьябратьев
  12. The plural of человек (person) is люди. Russian also uses the word человек in the genitive plural with numerals and with the indefinite expression несколько.
  13. In all other instances the genitive plural of люди (людей) is used.

Copyright ©. George Mitrevski. Auburn University. e-mail:mitrege@auburn.edu