12 



most words designating beings of male gender fall into set A, while those which indicate 

 female beings go into set C. For example, 



Set 



Set 



CTyfleHTKa 



fiadyniKa 



cecTpa 



Hcena 



girl student, coed 



grandmother 



sister 



wife 



It is useful to refer to the nouns of set A as "masculine (masc), while the nouns of set 

 C may be called "feminine"(fem,). Since set B has, as a general rule, no terms denot- 

 ing living beings, its nouns receive the name "neuter"(neut.). These gender references 

 are helpful, but they do have certain limitations; there is, for example, nothing specifi- 

 cally "masculine" about ctoji , "table" nor anything "feminine" about napTa . "map". 

 Furthermore, the nouns in set D(e.g. flsepb , "door") are also called "feminine", because 

 they are modified by the same form of the adjective used for nouns of set C; this will be 

 shown in a following section on adjectives. 



Animate and Inanimate 



In the accusative plural for all nouns and the accusative singular for masculine nouns 

 a form distinction is made between animate and inanimate entities. This does not mean 

 that a new form is created, since a form identical to that of the genitive is used for the 

 animate beings. Note the distinction in the accusative forms below; the sentence types 



used mean: 1) Where is the ?/Where are the ?; 2) I see . ; ^) There is no 



here. /There are no here. 



Sg. 



PI. 



Tfle ? 



H BH>Ky 



3;i.ecb HeT 



Tfle ? 



fl BHff.y 



3fleCB HGT 



AT THIS POINT THE WHOLE RANGE OF VARIATIONS IN NOUN DECLENSIONS CAN BE 

 CONSIDERED BY TURNING TO SECTION H (PARADIGMS) OF THE MANUAL. STUDY 

 THE NOUN FORMS AND NOTE ANY FEATURES NOT COVERED IN THE ANALYSIS OF 

 THE PAST FEW PAGES. 



Gender Markers in N-sg. Forms 



An inspection of the noun declensions has undoubtedly indicated that the "soft sign" 

 (b) is not characteristic only of nouns like flsepb , since a number of masculine nouns 

 have final _b^in the N-sg. case. The other sg. case forms of such nouns serve to establish 

 the gender, e.g. G-sg. KOpadJifl : flsepH. To sum up, in the N-sg., 



masc. nouns have Zero ending(final consonant): 



or -b : 



CTOJI, CTyflBHT, rGHHH 

 KOpadjIb, aBTOMOdMJIb 



neut. nouns end in the vowel letter -o : 



or -e : 



fern, nouns end in the vowel letter -a : 



or-fl : 

 or-b : 



OSepO, MBCTO, OHHO 



nojie, sflaHHB, pymbs 

 HapTa, iiepTa, jKBHa 



HBJIBJIfl, JIMHHfl, 36MJIfl 

 flBBpb, B6II|b, BOSMOffiHOCTb 



