Waiting for Godot

March 12, 2010

Waiting for Godot

‘Wait for’ in Russian is expressed by the verb ждать with the accusative or the genitive case. When with the accusative, it marks a definite noun phrase; with the genitive, the phrase is indefinite. This is a slight simplification of the facts, but it’s so.

— Мы ждём поезда. We are waiting for a train (or simply: the train, any train).
— Мы ждём поезд в Петербург. We are waiting for the Petersburg train.
— Мы ждём письма от родитилей. We are waiting for a letter from our parents.
— Мы ждём письмо, которое должно содержать деньги. We are waiting for a/the letter which should contain some money.

An extended meaning of this verb is ‘hope for, await’; it usually is associated with the genitive, as indefinite. Я жду окончательной победы ‘’I expect a final victory’.

Since proper names are by definition definite, they always come in the accusative: я жду брата, жду сестру и маму.

How can we tell that брата is accusative, since the animate accusative form is taken from the genitive? We can’t until we see an example with an obvious accusative, like Женю, Ваню, сестру, маму.

‘I am expecting (I am pregnant)’ is жду ребёнка. I think this is probably genitive, but you can argue this.
How can a Russian dictionary tell us what case or cases a verb takes? Look ждать up in Ожегов and you will find an example leading off the discussion which has кого–что ‘whom/what’, which is a clear indication of the accusative — if it were only genitive, you’d find кого–чего. After all, Russians don’t know about definiteness and indefiniteness, but they do know that кто что, кого чего, кому чему, о ком о чём, кем, чем is a paradigm to help find case endings.

Is this any help, Sasha?

gmc