ABSTRACT
The genitive case: A noun may be used to modify another noun. In the phrase ‘capital city’ the noun ‘capital’ is modifying the word ‘city’ (telling us what kind of city we are talking about). In the phrase ‘city centre’ the noun ‘city’ is modifying the noun ‘centre’; this could also be expressed as ‘the centre of the city’. In English noun modifiers are either placed before the noun they are modifying, or are joined to it by a preposition such as ‘of’. In Russian they are placed after the noun they are modifying and are expressed in the genitive case, as in the phrases центр города (‘city centre’) and остановка автобуса (‘bus stop’). Unlike adjectives – which agree in number, gender and case with the noun they are modifying – noun modifiers remain in the genitive no matter what case or number the noun they are modifying is in. In each of the examples below, the noun modifier города is in the genitive while the case of the noun it is modifying (центр) changes, depending on its function in the sentence.
