It seems that it is easy to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects to the indecent: it's like a game of life and inanimate. But those who are guided by this principle are very much mistaken. Animation, as well as inanimateness, respectively, is a separate category in the characteristic that has nothing to do with the external features of some object. Here's how to explain the fact that, according to the rules, the word "corpse" is considered inanimate, and "dead" - animated? Act randomly? In no case! We'll figure out.

For the little ones

Let's start with the very basics. Animate and inanimate objects answer different questions - "who" and "what" respectively. It can be said that the formulation of the question is the most primitive, albeit very unreliable, way of defining this category. Usually children are introduced to him in the first or second grade. In order to practice this method, you can fill in the gaps with the students in the following text:

« In sleepy oblivion flows great (what?). Around (what?) and (what?). (Who?) Slowly moved the skis, shook off (what?) Hats from the ears. (Who?) quickly made a hole, and began (what?). Soon he pulled out a huge (who?). His mirror (what?) shone brightly in the sun". Words to be inserted: ice, scales, fisherman, frost, river, carp, snow, fishing. One word is repeated twice.

Grammar explanation

But it's worth moving on, right? How to determine whether an animate or inanimate object is based on rules, and not on intuition? The difference between these two categories lies in the different case forms of the nouns. Inanimate nouns have the same nominative and plural form, while animate nouns have the same genitive and accusative in the same number. Of course, it will be much easier to understand specific examples.

We take the noun cat". We put it in the plural "cats" and begin to decline: nominative - " cats”, genitive - “ cats", accusative -" cats"- as you can see, the forms of the genitive and accusative cases coincide. Whereas for the noun table”, which, to define this category, becomes “ tables» when declining « tables-tables-tables» the accusative and

Thus, the rule allows to separate an animate and inanimate object only when they are put in the plural and the subsequent declension. And then, already by the coincidence of case forms, this category is determined.

Exceptions

But, as you know, there are very few rules in Russian that do not have any exceptions. So, it is sometimes possible to separate animate and inanimate objects logically. Yes, all living beings will be animate, but at the same time, mythical creatures belong to the same category ( goblin-goblin-goblin-goblin) and toy names ( matryoshka-matryoshka-matryoshka) - here you can still find a logical explanation. As well as card and chess suit-pieces ( spades, spades, pawns, pawns, pawns), which even in their forms do not fit into this category.

Move on. Inanimate nouns, in turn, include large groups of people ( crowd-crowd-crowd) and some living organisms ( embryos-embryos-embryos; germs-germs-microbes) - it is impossible to explain this phenomenon, you just have to accept and remember.

More difficulties

I would also like to add that animate and inanimate objects in the grammatical sense have their own characteristics. So, for example, for animate masculine nouns, the forms of the genitive and accusative cases coincide and in the singular: Anton-Anton-Anton, accountant-accountant-accountant, however, this phenomenon is observed only in nouns of the second declension (compare: Dima-Dima-Dima, although it is also an animate masculine noun). So, in principle, this pattern can be used as another simple, albeit not very well-known, way to determine the category of animation in nouns.

I want to confuse

It is worth noting that in Russian there is an image of an inanimate object as animated. This is usually associated with the use of the word as an analogy to a living being: There is a mattress in the barn - Yes, the mattress is weak-willed! or Great and mighty is the Russian language! - This language (= captive) will tell us everything.

Exactly the same phenomenon occurs with the use of animate nouns as inanimate ones: A kite flies in the blue sky; The fighter went down. Here the category of animation and inanimateness is determined based on the semantic content of the noun.

It is worth noting that, despite all the requirements of teachers to use the rules, most of the students continue to rely on intuition. As the above examples show, inner instinct is not always a reliable assistant in matters of philology. We can definitely say that the names of professions, the names of people by family affiliation, nationality and other groups will always be animated, and the names of animals can also be included here. By the way, among animate nouns, according to some researchers, there are only masculine and feminine words, while the neuter gender is already inanimate, like all names of objects of nature and other objects.

Practice for the little ones

Now that we have figured out how to distinguish one category of nouns from another, it is worth summarizing all of the above. Animate and inanimate objects for preschoolers, who still have no idea what cases are, differ in terms of “who” and “what”, respectively. For practice, you can play with the kids in “living-non-living”, where the word is called, and the child must determine what this object is.

Or another interesting task for younger students is to offer a number of animate nouns that can be turned into inanimate ones by replacing one letter: fox (linden), goat (spit), heron (drop).

I would like to finish the article on how to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects by saying that, no matter how simple this topic may seem, it is better not to tempt fate and not act at random, trusting intuition. A minute spent checking the category of a noun can sometimes change the way you think about it. So spare no effort and practice in the great and mighty Russian language.

Animated nouns include the names of persons and animals: man, daughter, son, Vera, Petrov, Dima, on duty, cow, goat, goose, starling, carp, spider etc. These are mostly masculine and feminine nouns. Nouns of the middle gender are few: child, creature (in meaning "living organism"), face (meaning "man"), words in -ische (monster, monster), substantivized adjectives and participles ( animal, insect, mammal). As a defining feature of animate nouns, the ability of the “objects” they call to move independently, to move, which inanimate objects do not possess, is often noted.

This semantic classification does not coincide with the scientific division of everything that exists in nature into living and non-living: in the sciences of nature, plants also belong to the living. It does not fit into the framework of the "everyday" understanding of the living and non-living. So, words are animate nouns dead man, deceased seemingly contrary to logic. Boiled duck, roast goose are also animate in the grammar. This also includes a doll, a ball (in the language of billiard players), ace, trump, jack etc. - words that have nothing to do with the living world. The category of inanimate includes nouns denoting the totality of living beings ( people, crowd, platoon, flock, swarm, group etc.), as well as collective nouns like youth, peasantry, children, proletariat etc., denoting a set of persons.

The division of nouns into animate and inanimate is based not only on semantic grounds, but also on
grammatical. Accusative plural
for animate nouns it coincides with the genitive, and
for the inanimate - with the nominative. Wed:
I see trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, I see people, cows, birds,
flocks of insects, geese, buy cucumbers, notebooks, buttons, buy sheep, pigeons, dolls, ate tangerines, oranges, ate chickens, crayfish, served fried eggplant, served fried partridges.

In the singular, the distinction between animate and inanimate nouns is consistently expressed morphologically in masculine words. Cf.: inanimate nouns and animate nouns I’ll cook soup, broth, cook a goose, a rooster, see off the steamer, see off a friend, plant potatoes, plant a guest.

An exception is masculine words ending in -a. For them, as for feminine nouns, the accusative case does not coincide with either the genitive or the nominative. Compare: I. - boy, girl; R. - boys, girls; AT. - young man, girl.

In animate neuter nouns, as well as inanimate ones, in the singular the form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the im. case. For example: Oh, how I love this empty creature! moaned Pavel Petrovich(Turgenev). The same is observed for feminine nouns with a zero ending in them. case: I see a lynx, a mouse.

A deviation from the basic norm of expressing the meaning of animation is the formation of wine forms. pad. pl. h. with a preposition in nouns - the names of persons expressing attitudes towards a particular social group: student, nanny, livestock breeder, etc. In constructions with the meaning "become (do) what" these words form the form of wines. cases as inanimate nouns: to be promoted to general, to be elected to academicians, to enter the janitors, to join the partisans, a candidate for deputies etc.

The names of microorganisms fluctuate between animate and inanimate nouns: microbe, bacillus, ciliate, bacterium, amoeba etc. They have two forms of the accusative case: study microbes and microbes; examine viruses and viruses in a microscope; destroy bacilli and bacilli. In the professional language, such words are usually used as animate nouns, and in the non-professional sphere as inanimate ones.

One and the same noun in one of its meanings can refer to animate, in another - to inanimate. So, the names of fish in direct meanings are animated nouns ( catch a crucian). Used as the names of foods, they act as inanimate nouns: eat sprats, invite for trout etc. Cf. also: I see a huge stump and I see this stump (whom?) every day.

Animation / inanimateness in words is peculiarly manifested blockhead, idol, idol, idol etc., which figuratively designate people. In the meaning of “statue”, these words clearly gravitate to inanimate, and in the figurative meaning of a person, to animate nouns. True, this feature is expressed inconsistently. Wed: put up an idol and it is difficult to convince this idol, but: On the banks of the Danube, the Russians set up a wooden idol (A. N. Tolstoy); From shaving his beard, he creates an idol for himself (Saltykov-Shedrin) and ... to make an idol out of this old useless person (L. Tolstoy).

The names of works of art based on their heroes act as animated nouns. Wed: get to know Eugene Onegin and listen to "Eugene Onegin"; call Rudin and read "Rudin" etc.

Wed also: treated a Muscovite and bought "Moskvich", feed a horse and sculpt a horse, but feed a crocodile and buy a "Crocodile"; see a kite, let (launch) a kite and make kites.

The names of the ancient gods are animate nouns, and the names of the luminaries homonymous with them are inanimate: anger Mars and look at Mars, honor Jupiter and see Jupiter and etc.

The words type, image, character are used as inanimate nouns, which are the names of characters in works of art: create a strong character; characterize negative types and positive images. Wed: list the characters of the novel, the heroes of the fairy tale, the characters of the fable, but: bring out a comic character.

How to determine whether a noun is animate or inanimate?

An animate noun is one that has a living component.

For example: a person, a hare, a grasshopper, etc. (hence the question is who?).

An inanimate noun is one that is not endowed with a living component.

For example: table, house, car, etc. (hence the question is what?).

In general, we intuitively, knowing the language well, can determine most words without rules. But, nevertheless, there is such a rule that will help to distinguish an animate noun from an inanimate one. So, for example, let's take two words for comparison: a corpse and a dead man. They need to be put in the plural first in the genitive case, and then in the accusative case. In the event that they are the same, then the word is animated. R.p. dead, corpses. V.p. dead, corpses. It turns out that dead man - animated, but corpse - inanimate

If a noun answers the question Who?, then it is animate. For example, a person, a cat, a bird, a girl. If a noun answers the question What?, then it is inanimate. For example, a house, a tree, a city.

For students, this is often a big problem. But there is no difficulty here. The first thing to do to determine whether a noun is animate or not is to ask a question. For example: who is a man, a fox, a dog; what - flower, forest, sky. All nouns answering the question who are animate, and the question what are inanimate.

In elementary school, children are taught a lightweight rule: What question does this noun answer? On who or what?

And children intuitively divide everything around into animate and inanimate.

But in older grades, the understanding comes that there are more complex cases of this rule. Do plants have a soul: a flower, a bush, a tree? After all, they breathe, grow, get sick like us, die ..., i.e. alive, and why then they are inanimate? But the soul has already left the dead man, but is he still animated?

That's when the genitive and accusative case helps in the plural. If the words match, we have an animated object in front of us.

To determine whether a noun is animate or inanimate, it is enough to ask a question. Answers the question Who? - animate noun, answers the question What? - noun inanimate. For example,

dog - Who?

column - What?

Questions will help us with this. Animated nouns include all living beings and they are asked the question who? . For example, a fox, a man, a hedgehog, a hippopotamus, etc.

Inanimate nouns are objects and answer the question what ??. An example is a large set, a stool, a table, a chair, a floor, a ceiling, a lamp.

The simplest example that we were driven in from school is to ask a question for a word, and if it turns out that the word answers who? we attribute it to the living (animate), and if on what? to non-living (inanimate). Later, such a rule was added - you need to take a noun and present it as a genitive case in the plural, and then compare it with the accusative case, also in the plural. If in front of you the same word in form means it is animated. If not, on the contrary, inanimate.

Nouns dead man, dead man are animate, and corpse - inanimate. How to define it? And you just need to put the noun in the form of the genitive plural and the accusative plural. If these forms match, we have an animated noun.

No dead = see dead

No dead = see dead

But there are no corpses, I see corpses.

Using this formula Rod.p.pl.ch. = Win.p. pl. h., we will unmistakably define an animate or inanimate noun. Inanimate nouns have the same forms of the nominative plural and the accusative plural.

I.p. what? chamomile = win.p. see what? chamomile

On the issue. Animate answers the question who, inanimate what

We were taught very simply in school to distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns from each other. All living things are animate nouns (for example, a person, an astronaut, a cat, a dog, a professor, and so on). These nouns answer the question WHO? .

And all non-living things are inanimate nouns (for example, a table, a chair, an apple, weather, and so on). These nouns answer the question What? .

Instruction

In Russian grammar, the category of animation does not always coincide with scientific ideas about living things. There are many nouns that are considered inanimate in the language, but refer to phenomena inherent in living nature, and sometimes vice versa.

Animate nouns give the name to living beings that tend to move: for example, walk, run, jump. When used in speech, there are rarely neuter nouns that are animate (they include the words “monster”, “monster”, “animal”, “insect”, “child”). Animated nouns are usually either feminine or masculine.

In difficult cases, to distinguish whether nouns are animate or inanimate, the grammatical forms expressed in them help.

Animation or inanimateness is recognized by a certain coincidence of the forms of the accusative case of the noun. In the plural, word forms coinciding with the genitive case speak of animation (“draw bears, butterflies”), and in the nominative - inanimateness (“watch cartoons, albums”). Similar coincidences can be observed in adjectives that are consistent with masculine nouns (“dear guest” - animated; “lay a carpet” - inanimate).

Animation will be indicated to you by constructions of nouns with a preposition with separate verbs denoting an action - a transition to a different position: the endings of the nominative and accusative cases in the plural will be the same (“enroll in students”, “get into artists”).

Note that the categories of animate or inanimate tend to fluctuate at times. According to the established modern norms of the Russian language, nouns naming microorganisms and some other names are defined as inanimate (“describe bacteria”, but not “bacteria”; “consider larvae”, but not “larvae”). An obsolete form of such nouns, speaking of animation, can be found in scientific literature. The proper meaning of the names of fish allows us to consider them animated, but these words, which have become the names of dishes, very often in use acquire the same forms of nominative and accusative cases, which is an indicator of inanimateness (for example, “catch crayfish” (animate) - “cook smoked crayfish” (unsouled.)). "Neptune", "Mars", "Pluto" are nouns that can be animate (the names of the Gods) and inanimate (the names of the planets).

The words "humanity", "students", which have the meaning of the collection of animate objects, are inanimate in grammar. And when declining such words as “dead man”, “dead man”, “queen” (a piece in chess), “jack” (the name of one of the cards), you can find the grammatical category of animation. One can say about the attitude towards animation by considering the names of some fantastic creatures, which include "

Since elementary school, you have an idea about living and inanimate nature. Nouns are also called objects of animate and inanimate nature. And nouns are divided into animate and inanimate. But not everything is so simple. Many interesting linguistic discoveries await you as you learn to distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns.

All common nouns in Russian are divided into two categories: animate and inanimate. Animate nouns answer the question “who?”, and inanimate nouns answer the question “what?”

For example, "who?" - boy, dog, bird; "what?" - book, stone, earth.

1. Category of animation - inanimateness - grammatical category

It seems that everything is simple: the category of animation - inanimateness is based on the distinction between the living and the inanimate. However, in Russian there are cases when grammar contradicts common sense. It is enough to remember the synonyms dead body and dead man.

The noun "corpse" is inanimate, and the noun "dead" is animate. The difference is found only in the form of B.p. unit: I see a dead person - I see a corpse, compare: I see an elephant - I see a chair.

Animated nouns have the same plural forms V.p. and R.p. (and for nouns m.r. of the 2nd declension and forms V.p. and R.p. singular), but for inanimate ones - no. Inanimate nouns have the same forms I.p. and V.p. plural.

I see (who?) Elephants, there are no (who?) Elephants; I see (who?) mice, there are no (who?) mice.

I see (what?) books, there are no (what?) books; see (what?) at homé, no (what?) houses.

Animated nouns include the names of people, animals, insects, etc., that is, living beings. Inanimate nouns are the names of objects, phenomena of reality that are not classified as living beings.

2. Should pay attention

Note:

• the names of chess and card pieces and the nouns "dead man", "dead man", as well as the names of dolls ( parsley, marionette) and the word “doll” itself are animated nouns;
• and the words that name the totality of living beings: army, people, crowd, flock, students, mankind etc. are inanimate nouns.

Basically, animate nouns include masculine and feminine nouns. There are few animate neuter nouns in Russian. This includes several nouns with the suffix -ische ( monster, bogeyman), individual nouns (formed from adjectives or participles): mammal, insect, animal and

nouns child, face(meaning "person").

3. Typical mistakes

Errors in the use of the category of animation - inanimate nouns can be divided into two groups:

First- the use of inanimate nouns as animate ones, for example: Everyone looked at him like ghost. Let's check by the formula “V.p. plural = R.p. plural ": (I see) ghosts- (No) ghosts. The endings don't match, hence the noun ghost - inanimate, so the sentence, according to the grammatical norms of the Russian language, should look like this: Everyone looked at him like ghost.

Second- the use of animate nouns as inanimate ones. For example: When he carried securities, two people were given to accompany him. Correctly: When he carried securities, he was given as an escorttwo people.

Remember: in constructions with compound numbers ending in two three four, V.p. numeral retains the Im.p. form, regardless of the category of animation. For example: The driver had to deliver twenty three athlete.

Bibliography

1. Russian language. Grade 6 / Baranov M.T. and others - M .: Education, 2008.
2. Babaitseva V.V., Chesnokova L.D. Russian language. Theory. 5-9 cells - M.: Bustard, 2008.
3. Russian language. 6 cells / Ed. MM. Razumovskaya, P.A. Lekanta. - M.: Bustard, 2010.

1. Terver.ru ().
2. Hi-edu.ru ().

Homework

Exercise 1.

Write the words in 2 columns - animate nouns and inanimate nouns:

Creature, janitor, monster, tin, journalism, youth, insect, engine, coal, corpse, warmth, stubbornness, student, hazel grouse, mushroom, doll, peddler, midge, infantryman, spirit, Sakhalin, children, detachment, steel, coal, poverty, cap, infantry, small fry, general, herd, canned food, table, larva, aluminum, snake, red tape, crow, fox, humanity, relatives, boyar, Karakum, horse, young, genius, youth, bell, milk, chick, silk, scarecrow, pea, tentacle, pea, comrade, cooking, oil, dishes, cement, poor, relative, sugar, tea, honey, kettle, yeast, tea leaf, herd, whiteness, pity, stubborn, hero, furniture, radiance, delight, heroism, running, journalist, walking, pearls, generals, pearl, freshness, crow.

Exercise #2

Read the tale of L. Uspensky:

A raft floats on the river. A fat lazy cat sits motionless on the shore. The raft asks the Cat:

Are you alive?

What can you prove?

I'm moving.

I swim and you sit.

I want to - I will move.

I am a great raft, alive, and cats are inanimate. You are a thing and I exist.

The cat thought and said:

I will prove to you grammatically exactly who is who, and what is what. I'll kill you with the accusative case. Your nominative will not stand against my accusative.

Help the cat, prove that he is right. Using the elements of the essay-reasoning, complete the fairy tale.