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Sir/Madame,
It all comes down to patterns of paradigm synchronism, free syntax, and the need to distinguish the subject (Deep Case: Agent) from the direct object (Deep Case: Object), or "the actor from the acted upon."
As you know, the basic paradigm for Russian nouns marks six cases:
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Instrumental
Dative
Locative (Prepositional)
The point is that "synchronism" (where one or more of the cases use the same suffix) exists in all of the basic paradigms for Russian nouns: masculine, neuter, feminine -a (or fem. I), feminine II and plural. Let's begin by comparing the following two paradigms:
masculine feminine I
animate / inanimate
N
волк
камень
американка
A
волка
камень
американку
G
волка
камня
американки
I
волком
камнем
американкой
D
волку
камню
американке
L
волке
камне
американке
Notice the difference in the patterns of synchronism between the masculine animate and inanimate paradigms:
- In the animate paradigm the nominative case is distinguished from the accusative because the genitive suffix and the accusative are the same (i.e., they synchronize). Thus the subject (Deep Case: Agent) is distinct from the direct object (Deep Case: Object).
- In the inanimate paradigm the nominative and accusative cases synchronize and there is no such distinction.
Why? To quote the NRA:- Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
Indeed, in Russian an inanimate noun cannot be the subject of a transitive verb. Thus, in a sentence like "This rifle killed him," in Russian the "rifle" would not be the subject but the Deep Case: Instrument: (Don't tell this to anyone from the NRA! They've got enough ammo.)
In the case of animate nouns, however, a nominative/accusative distinction is critical. Particularly, when we consider that, unlike English, Russian does not have strict S-V-O (subject, verb, direct object) syntactic requirements. Russian syntax is rather "free." Consider the matter of "killer" and "victim" in the following sentences:
- Убил волк коня.
- Охотник волка убил.
- Oхотника зверь убил.
- Конь убил волка.
While the syntax is different in each example, the "killer" and the "victim" are always distinguished because the suffixes marking the nominative and accusative forms are different.
* * *
The notion of animate: inanimate is not critical in the feminine I paradigm because the nominative case is already distinguished from the accusative by a different suffix (N -a ~ A -y). Thus, in the following sentences the roles of "killer" and "victim" are clearly marked:
- Американка убила немку.
- Немку убила американка
.
- Убила немку американка.
(Who says American women aren't agressive?)
* * *
This brings us to the neuter and feminine II paradigms. Fortunately, each paradigm only includes two animate nouns: лицо ~ person and дитя ~ child, baby are neuter, while the two feminine II
animates are мать ~ mother and дочь ~ daughter. This is "fortunate" because neither the neuter nor the feminine II paradigm distinguishes nominative and accusative:
N
лицо
мать
A
лицо
мать
G
лица
матери
I
лицом
матерью
D
лицу
матери
L
лице
матери
The potential problem, of course, is that in a sentence like:
we would not know if a mother killed her daughter or visa versa. Were this, let's say, a newspaper headline, the syntax would not be as "free" as in our example and would follow the S-V-O (subject, verb, direct object) pattern of English to distinguish the "victim" from the "murderer:"
The daughter did it!!
* * *
The animate/inanimate distinction is most important in plural nouns where the notion of grammatical gender is suspended and the four singular nominal paradigms come together to form one common plural paradigm. Note the patterns of syncretism for animate versus inanimate nouns in the plural paradigm:
animate inanimate
N
отцы
дети
доктора
жены
лапы
окна
A
отцов
детей
докторов
жен
лапы
окна
G
отцов
детей
докторов
жен
лап
окон
I
отцами
детьми
докторами
женами
лапами
окнами
D
отцам
детям
докторам
женам
лапам
окнам
L
отцах
детях
докторах
женах
лапах
окнах
In the plural paradigm all animates (singular grammatical gender notwithstanding!) use the genitive case ending for the accusative to distinguish the subject from the direct object. Consequently, there is no question about "who's beating whom" or "who's breaking what" in the following sentences:
- Детей отцы бьют.
- Бьют жены отцов.
- Окна бьют дети.
* * *
Before we conclude we should also briefly note some of the unusual distinctions Russians make concerning animate and inanimate nouns. - Neuter adjectives and participles used as nouns and denoting insects and animals - насекомое ~ insect, животное ~ animal and млекопитающее ~ mammal - are all animate.
- Then there's the strange case of what to do with the "dead": покойник ~ the deceased and мертвец ~ dead person are treated as animates, while труп ~ corpse is considered inanimate.
Go figure!
The RLM
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