?
The Second Genitive in Russian
This paper is an overview of the so-called second genitive in Russian, a nominal form available for a minority of Russian nouns but widely used with these nouns in certain contexts. In many ways, the second genitive is a secondary case. Thus, it may always be substituted with a regular genitive form, while the opposite is not true. A major subset of the contexts where the second genitive may be used fits into what is known as a functional category of partitive, so this form is sometimes called Russian partitive. To a certain extent, indeed, the second genitive is the form with which the regular genitive may be substituted in partitive contexts. The analysis of the distribution of the second genitive shows, however, that the partitive meaning is not the only function of this form. Not less if not more widespread are uses in combinations with prepositions. These and other types of contexts should be taken into account to build a comprehensive picture of the category distribution and functional load.