What is the Prepositional case in the Russian language?

Hello, my dear Russian learner! I’m sure you already know that cases are one of the most difficult rules of the Russian language. So, let's figure them out together!

We’ve already written a short explanation about what cases are and how many there are in the Russian language. You can read it here.

Let's briefly remind you that a case is a grammatical category that determines the role of a number of parts of speech in a sentence, expresses the connection between them and conveys the meaning of what is said. It's what word order often does in other languages.

The case applies to nouns, pronouns, as well as the adjectives, numerals and participles that depend on them. They decline by case, which means the ending of the word changes.

There are six cases in the Russian language. We’ve written about the first five already:

• the Nominative case
• the Genitive case
• the Dative case
• the Accusative case
• the Instrumental case

And now, let’s break down the Prepositional case.

What does the Prepositional case mean?

The Prepositional case appeared in Russian grammar as one of the last. In the 17th century, Meletius Smotrytsky, author of Russian ‘Grammar’, included it in the case system under the name ‘the Declarative case’, indicating that it indicates "to speak, to say about something". In the 18th century, Mikhail Lomonosov renamed it ‘the Prepositional case’.

The Prepositional case denotes who or what is being talked about, indicating a place, time or object. And this case is used only with prepositions: ‘о, об, обо’ (about), ‘в, во’ (in, into), ‘на’ (on, upon), ‘при’ (at, attached to).

For nouns and pronouns, it answers the questions ‘о ком? о чем?’ (about whom? about what?), for adjectives and participles ‘о каком? о какой? о каком? о каких?’ (about which?), and for the numerals ‘о скольких?’ (about how many?).

Below is an example of what the endings for nouns of the three declension types look like in the Prepositional case:

There are cases, established historically, where two different forms of the prepositional case are used.

For example:

• говорить о доме, о лесе (to talk about a house, about a forest)
• BUT быть в лесу, работать на дому (to be in the forest, to work from home). 

Also, the expression ‘на Руси’ (in Old Russia) belongs to this form. In the modern language, you would say ‘в России’ (in Russia).

If you want to study Russian cases and grammar in more detail, then sign up to our free online Russian language course!