First declension

Second declension

Third declension

Indeclinable nouns

Some nouns (such as borrowings from other languages, abbreviations, etc.) are not modified when they change number and case. This occurs especially when the ending appears not to match any declension pattern in the appropriate gender. An example of an indeclinable noun is кофе ("coffee").

Additional cases

This section includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (April 2023)

Some nouns use several additional cases. The most important of these are:

• Locative (ме́стный): the most common minor case, used with some nouns after the prepositions of location на and в(о). With most nouns, the prepositional form is used in such instances. When there is a distinct locative, it takes the form of the dative ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. A few feminine nouns ending in ь have a locative form of independent origin, consisting of the singular genitive/dative/prepositional ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. This may mean it matches the dative, or it may take a unique form. For example, in во рту́ ("in the mouth") and в груди́ ("in the chest"), the locatives of рот ("mouth") and грудь match the dative forms ртy and (modern) груди́. In the case of рот, this differs from the prepositional ртe, but in the case of грудь the prepositional (and all other singular oblique cases besides instrumental) have merged with the locative. In в лесу́ ("in the forest") and в связи́ ("in view (of)"), the locatives of лес ("forest") and связь ("link, connection") differ from both the prepositional ле́се and свя́зи and the dative ле́сy and свя́зи (the dative and locative of лес are spelt identically but pronounced differently).
• Partitive (отдели́тельный), or second genitive: sometimes used instead of the accusative (as it should be for the direct object) to imply, that only part of the object is affected by the verb: налить ча́ю "to pour some tea" (not all the tea) — from налить чай "to pour the tea". It is never final-stressed.
• Vocative (зва́тельный): used to call or speak to a person. There are two types of vocative in modern Russian. The common Slavic vocative is archaic and survives only in fixed expressions: Бо́же мой! (My God!). The modern vocative (sometimes called neo-vocative) is produced from a first-declension noun by removing the vowel ending: мам, ты меня слышишь? "mom, can you hear me?" from ма́ма. It can only be applied to familiar (affectionate) terms for family members or close friends and diminutives of commonly used Slavic names: Ива́н (full name) — Ва́ня (short, affectionate) — Вань (neo-vocative); Мари́я — Ма́ша — Маш. It is frequently used in the informal spoken language with a certain number of nouns in the plural: "ребя́т, пойдёмте!" ("guys, let's go!") from ребя́та, "девча́т, смотри́те!" ("girls, look!") from девча́та.
• Caritive (лиши́тельный), often used with the negation of verbs: не знать пра́вды (not to know the truth) — знать пра́вду (to know the truth). This case is identical to the genitive and obligatory replaces the accusative for all negated forms of the verb быть "to be", including compound verbs: Меня не было дома "I wasn't home" — compare Я был дома "I was home"; Этого не может быть! "It can't be!" — compare Это может быть (так) "It (This) can be (so)" (however: Это не может быть правдой "This can't be true" is the only correct option). Some negated verbs are allowed to be used with caritive in a casual speech, if considered synonymous with "to be" (существовать "to exist", случиться "to happen", появиться "to appear"). For many other verbs use of caritive may be considered illiterate: Вас тут не стояло "You were not standing here" — compare Вы тут не стояли (same, but with proper use of the accusative).

Adjectival declension

The pattern described below holds true for full forms of most adjectives, except possessive ones. It is also used for substantivized adjectives as учёный ("scientist, scholar" as a noun substitute or "scientific, learned" as a general adjective) and for adjectival participles. Russian differentiates between hard-stem and soft-stem adjectives, shown before and after a slash sign.

• The masculine and neuter genitive singular adjectival endings -ого and -его are pronounced as -ово and -ево.
• After a sibilant (ш, ж, ч, щ) or velar (к, г, х) consonant, и is written instead of ы.
• When a masculine adjective ends in -ой in the nominative, the stress falls on the final syllable throughout its declension: прямо́й ([prʲɪˈmoj], "straight"), compare упря́мый ([ʊˈprʲamɨj], "stubborn").
• The "хоро́шее rule" states that after a sibilant consonant, neuter adjectives end in -ее.
• The masculine accusative singular and the accusative plural endings depend on animacy, as with nouns.
• The instrumental feminine ending -ой/-ей has old-fashion alternative form -ою/-ею for all adjectives, which has only a stylistic difference.
• There are often stress changes in the short form. For example, the short forms of но́вый ("new") are нов (m.), но́во (n.), нова́ (f.), новы́/но́вы (pl.).
• In the masculine singular short form, when a word-final consonant cluster is being formed after ending removal, an additional е or о interfix is inserted after the root, as in го́лоден, from голо́дный ("hungry").
• Some adjectives (e.g. большо́й "big", ру́сский "Russian") have no short forms.

Comparison of adjectives

Comparison forms are usual only for qualitative adjectives and adverbs. Comparative and superlative synthetic forms are not part of the paradigm of original adjective but are different lexical items, since not all qualitative adjectives have them. A few adjectives have irregular forms that are declined as usual adjectives: большо́й 'big' – бо́льший 'bigger', хоро́ший 'good' – лу́чший 'better'. Most synthetically-derived comparative forms are derived by adding the suffix -е́е or -е́й to the adjective stem: кра́сный 'red' – красне́е 'redder'; these forms are difficult to distinguish from adverbs, whose comparative forms often coincide with those of their adjectival counterparts.^[11] Superlative synthetic forms are derived by adding the suffix -е́йш- or -а́йш- and additionally sometimes the prefix наи-, or using a special comparative form with the prefix наи-: до́брый 'kind' – добре́йший 'the kindest', большо́й 'big' – наибо́льший 'the biggest'.

An alternative is to add an adverb to the positive form of the adjective. The adverbs used for this are бо́лее 'more' / ме́нее 'less' and са́мый 'most' / наибо́лее 'most' / наиме́нее 'least': for example, до́брый 'kind' – бо́лее до́брый 'kinder' – са́мый до́брый 'the kindest'. This way is rarely used if special comparative forms exist.

Possessive adjectives

Possessive adjectives are less frequently used in Russian than in most other Slavic languages,^[12] but are in use. They respond to the questions чей? чья? чьё? чьи? (whose?) and denote only animate possessors. See section below.

Personal pronouns

• Russian is subject to the T–V distinction. The respectful form of the singular you is the same as the plural form. It begins with a capital letter: Вы, Вас, Вам, etc., in the following situations: personal letters and official papers (addressee is definite), and questionnaires (addressee is indefinite); otherwise it begins with minuscule. Compare the distinction between du and Sie in German or tu and vous in French.
• When a preposition is used directly before a third-person pronoun, it is prefixed with н-: у него (read: у нево), с неё, etc. Because the prepositional case always occurs after a preposition, the third person prepositional always starts with an н-.
• There are special cases for prepositions before first person singular pronouns: со мной – "with me" (usually с), ко мне – "to me" (usually к), во мне – "in me" (usually в), обо мне – "about me" (usually о). All of these preposition forms are unstressed.
• Like adjectives and numerals, letter "г" (g) in masculine and neuter 3rd person genitive and accusative forms is pronounced as "в" (v): (н)его – (н)ево.
• English "it" can be translated as both оно́ (neuter personal pronoun) and э́то (neuter proximal demonstrative, "this"). The latter is used as a stub pronoun for a subject: э́то хорошо́ – "it/this is good", кто́ это? – "who is it/this?".

Demonstrative pronouns

If the preposition "about" is used (usually о), for singular demonstrative pronouns (as with any other words starting with a vowel) it is об: об э́том – about this.

Possessive adjectives and pronouns

Unlike English, Russian uses the same form for a possessive adjective and the corresponding possessive pronoun. In Russian grammar they are called possessive pronouns притяжательные местоимения (compare with possessive adjectives like Peter's = Петин above). The following rules apply:

• Possessive pronouns agree with the noun of the possessed in case, gender, and number.
• The reflexive pronoun свой is used when the possessor is the subject of the clause, whatever the person, gender, and number of that subject.
• No non-reflexive exists for the third person: the genitive of the personal pronoun is instead, i.e. его for a masculine/neuter singular possessor, её for a feminine singular possessor and их for a plural possessor. But unlike other genitives used with a possessive meaning, in modern Russian these words are usually placed before the object of possession.
• Example of the difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns:
  • "Он лю́бит свою́ жену́ = He loves his (own) wife"   while   "Он лю́бит его́ жену́ = He loves his (someone else's) wife".
• Unlike Latin where a similar rule applies for the third person only, Russian accepts using reflexives for all persons:
  • "Я люблю́ (свою́) жену́ = I love my wife"
  • "Я люблю́ себя́ = I love myself"

The ending -его is pronounced as -ево́.

Interrogative pronouns

These interrogatives are used by scholars to denote "usual" questions for correspondent grammatical cases (prepositional is used with о): (кто?) Ма́ша лю́бит (кого?) Ва́сю – (who?) Masha [N.] loves (whom?) Vasya [G.].

The ending "-его" is pronounced as "-ево".

Infinitive

The infinitive is the basic form of a verb for most purposes of study. In Russian it has the suffix -ть/-ти (the latter is used after consonants), or ends with -чь (but -чь is not a suffix of a verb). For reflexive verbs -ся/-сь suffix is added in the end. Note that due to phonological effects, both -ться and -тся endings (latter is used for present-future tense of a 3rd person reflexive verb; see below) are pronounced as [t͡sə] or [tsə] and often cause misspellings even among native speakers.

Present-future tense

Future tense has two forms: simple and compound.

• Future simple forms are formed by perfective verbs with the help of personal endings: "She will read" (She will have read) — "Она́ прочита́ет/прочтёт"; "She will do some reading" (She will be reading [for a certain amount of time]) — "Она́ почита́ет".
• Future compound forms are formed by imperfective verbs: a future simple tense form of the verb "быть" (to be) and the infinitive of an imperfective verb. The Russian compound future tense is similar in structure to the English future progressive tense and is used to indicate that something will be in progress at a particular moment in the future: She will be reading — "Она́ бу́дет чита́ть", without any assurance that an action will be completed, as opposed to using a perfective verb to refer to an action that is expected to be completed in the future: "Она́ прочтёт" — "She will read / She will have read".

• -у/-ут,-ат is used after a hard consonant or ж, ш, щ or ч; otherwise -ю/-ют,-ят is used.
• A mutating final consonant may entail a change in the ending.
• е becomes ё when stressed.

Two forms are used to conjugate the present tense of imperfective verbs and the future tense of perfective verbs.

The first conjugation is used in verb stems ending in:

• a consonant,
• -у,-ы or -о,-я
• -е (In addition to below)
• Бить, пить, жить, шить, лить, вить, гнить, брить, стелить, зиждить.
• -а not preceded by a hush (ж, ш, щ or ч):

The second conjugation involves verb stems ending in:

• -и or -е (Глядеть, смотреть, видеть, ненавидеть, обидеть, зависеть, терпеть, вертеть, пыхтеть, сидеть, лететь, гудеть, гореть, сопеть, дудеть, блестеть, храпеть, смердеть, хрипеть, шелестеть, хрустеть, сипеть, кишеть, бдеть, звенеть, кряхтеть, кипеть, корпеть, зудеть, скорбеть, тарахтеть, шуметь, зреть, висеть, греметь, шипеть)
• -а preceded by a hush (ж, ш, щ or ч)(Слышать, дышать, держать, лежать, дребезжать, жужжать, брюзжать, дрожать, бренчать, стучать, мычать, кричать, молчать, рычать, мчать, урчать, звучать, бурчать, ворчать, торчать, журчать, гнать):
• Стоять, бояться

Example: попро-с-ить – попро-ш-у, попро-с-ят [pəprɐˈsʲitʲ, pəprɐˈʂu, pɐˈprosʲɪt] (to have solicited – [I, they] will have solicited).

Past tense

The Russian past tense is gender specific: –л for masculine singular subjects, –ла for feminine singular subjects, –ло for neuter singular subjects, and –ли for plural subjects. This gender specificity applies to all persons; thus, to say "I slept", a male speaker would say я спал, while a female speaker would say я спалá.

Moods

Russian verbs can form three moods (наклонения): indicative (изъявительное), conditional (сослагательное) and imperative (повелительное).^[15]

Verbs of motion

Verbs of motion are a distinct class of verbs found in several Slavic languages. Due to the extensive semantic information they contain, Russian verbs of motion pose difficulties for non-native learners at all levels of study.^[17] Unprefixed verbs of motion, which are all imperfective, divide into pairs based on the direction of the movement (uni- or multidirectional — sometimes referred to as determinate/indeterminate or definite/indefinite). As opposed to a verb-framed language, in which path is encoded in the verb, but manner of motion typically is expressed with complements, Russian is a satellite language, meaning that these concepts are encoded in both the root of the verb and the particles associated with it, satellites.^[18] Thus, the roots of motion verbs convey the lexical information of manner of movement, e.g. walking, crawling, running, whereas prefixes denote path, e.g. motion in and out of space.^{[19][note 1]} The roots also distinguish between means of conveyance, e.g. by transport or by one's own power, and in transitive verbs, the object or person being transported.^[20] The information below provides an outline of the formation and basic usage of unprefixed and prefixed verbs of motion.

Adjectival participle

Russian adjectival participles can be active or passive; have perfective or imperfective aspect; imperfective participles can have present or past tense, while perfective ones in classical language can be only past.^[24] As adjectives, they are declined by case, number and gender. If adjectival participles are derived from reciprocal verbs, they have suffix -ся appended after the adjectival ending; this suffix in participles never takes the short form. Participles are often difficult to distinguish from deverbal adjectives (this is important for some cases of orthography).

Adverbial participle

Adverbial participles (деепричастия) express an earlier or simultaneous action providing context for the sentence in which they occur, similar to the English constructions "having done X" or "while doing Y".

Like normal adverbs, adverbial participles are not declined. They inherit the aspect of their verb; imperfective ones are usually present, while perfective ones can only be past (since they denote action performed by the subject, the tense corresponds to the time of action denoted by the verb). Adverbial participles are usually active, but passive constructions may be formed using adverbial participle forms of the verb быть (present будучи "being", very rarely past бывши "having been"); these may be combined with either an adjectival participle in the instrumental case (Будучи раненным, боец оставался в строю – Being wounded, the combatant remained in the row), or a short adjective in the nominative (Бывши один раз наказан, он больше так не делал – Having been punished once, he didn't do it any more).

Present adverbial participles are formed by adding the suffix -а/-я (or sometimes -учи/-ючи, which is usually deprecated) to the stem of the present tense. A few past adverbial participles (mainly of intransitive verbs of motion) are formed in the same way, but most are formed with the suffix -в (alternative form -вши, always used before -сь), some whose stem ends with a consonant, with -ши. For reflexive verbs, the suffix -сь remains at the very end of the word; in poetry it can take the form -ся.^[25][26]

In standard Russian, adverbial participles are considered a feature of bookish speech; in colloquial language they are usually replaced with single adjectival participles or constructions with verbs: Пообедав, я пошёл гулять ("Having eaten, I went for a walk") → Я пообедал и пошёл гулять ("I ate and went for a walk"). But in some conservative dialects, adverbial and adjectival participles may be used to produce perfect forms, which do not occur in standard Russian; e.g. "I haven't eaten today" will be "Я сегодня не евши" instead of "Я сегодня не ел".

Irregular verbs

This section possibly contains original research. (March 2024)

¹These verbs all have a stem change.
²These verbs are palatalised in certain cases, namely с → ш for all the present forms of "писа́ть", and д → ж in the first person singular of the other verbs.
³These verbs do not conform to either the first or second conjugations.

Impersonal sentences

Russian is a null-subject language – it allows constructing sentences without subject (Russian: безличные предложения). Some of them are claimed to not be impersonal, but to have oblique subject. One possible classification of such sentences distinguishes:^[28]

Subjectless impersonals contain an impersonal verb (in form of single third-person or single neutral), and no other word is used as a subject

Смеркалось. '(It got) dusky.'

В Москве полночь. '(It's) midnight in Moscow.'

Dative impersonals usually express personal feelings, where experiencer in dative case can possibly be considered as subject

Мне^dat. скучно. 'I'm bored.'

Other impersonals have an element which is neither nominative nor dative, but still is a nominal verb argument

Меня^acc. тошнит. 'I feel sick.'

Васю^acc. ударило током^instr.. 'Vasya had an electric shock.'

Negation

Coordination

The most common types of coordination expressed by compound sentences in Russian are conjoining, oppositional, and separative. Additionally, the Russian grammar considers comparative, complemental, and clarifying. Other flavors of meaning may also be distinguished.

Conjoining coordinations are formed with the help of the conjunctions и "and", ни … ни ("not … not" — simultaneous negation), та́кже "also", то́же ("too"; the latter two have complementary flavors), etc. Most commonly the conjoining coordination expresses enumeration, simultaneity or immediate sequence. They may also have a cause-effect flavor.

Oppositional coordinations are formed with the help of the oppositional conjunctions: а "and"~"but", но "but", одна́ко "however", зато́ "on the other hand", же "and"~"but", etc. They express the semantic relations of opposition, comparison, incompatibility, restriction, or compensation.

Separative coordinations are formed with the help of the separative conjunctions: и́ли "or", ли́бо "either", ли … ли "whether … or", то … то "then … then", etc. They express alternation or incompatibility of things expressed in the coordinated sentences.

Complemental and clarifying coordination expresses additional, but not subordinated, information related to the first sentence.

Comparative coordination is a semantic flavor of the oppositional one.

Common coordinating conjunctions include:

• и [i] "and", enumerative, complemental;
• а [a] "and", comparative, tending to "but" or "while";
• но [no] "but", oppositional.

The distinction between "и" and "а" is important:

• "и" implies a following complemental state that does not oppose the antecedent;
• "а" implies a following state that acts in opposition to the antecedent, but more weakly than "но" ("but").

The distinction between "и" and "а" developed after medieval times. Originally, "и" and "а" were closer in meaning. The unpunctuated ending of the Song of Igor illustrates the potential confusion. The final five words in modern spelling, "князьям слава а дружине аминь" [knʲɪˈzʲjam ˈslavə ɐ druˈʐɨnʲɪ ɐˈmʲinʲ] can be understood either as "Glory to the princes and to their retinue! Amen." or "Glory to the princes, and amen (R.I.P.) to their retinue". Although the majority opinion is definitely with the first interpretation, no consensus has formed. The psychological difference between the two is quite obvious.

Subordination

Complementizers (subordinating conjunctions, adverbs, or adverbial phrases) include:

• если [ˈjesʲlʲɪ] 'if' (meaning 'in case where' not meaning 'whether');
• потому что [pətɐˈmu ʂtə] 'because'
• так как [tak kak] 'since' (meaning 'for the reason that')
• чтобы [ˈʂtobɨ], дабы [ˈdabɨ] (bookish, archaic) 'so that'
• после того, как [ˈposʲlʲɪ tɐˈvo kək] 'after'
• хотя [xɐˈtʲa] 'although'

In general, Russian has fewer subordinate clauses than English, because the participles and adverbial participles often take the place of a relative pronoun/verb combination. For example:

Absolute construction

Despite the inflectional nature of Russian, there is no equivalent in modern Russian to the English nominative absolute or the Latin ablative absolute construction. The old language had an absolute construction, with the noun in the dative. Like so many other archaisms, it is retained in Church Slavonic. Among the last known examples in literary Russian occurs in Radishchev's Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (Путешествие из Петербурга в Москву [pʊtʲɪˈʂɛstvʲɪje ɪs pʲɪtʲɪrˈburɡə v mɐˈskvu]), 1790:

Едущу мне из Едрова, Анюта из мысли моей не выходила. [ˈjedʊɕːʉ mnʲe ɪzʲ jɪˈdrovə, ɐˈnʲutə ɪz ˈmɨsʲlʲɪ mɐˈjej nʲɪ vɨxɐˈdʲilə] "As I was leaving Yedrovo village, I could not stop thinking about Aniuta."