Red Kalinka Forum

Hello guys!

I was reading a description of someone's flat and I noticed the words like гостиная, ванная, прихожая have a very strange ending in Prepositional: в гостиной, в ванной, в прихожей. So, it looks like the ending of an adjective, but I would say that "bathroom" or "living room" are nous? Why those endings then?

Technolok, why do you ask only about Prepositional? In fact these words in all cases have endings like adjectives though they are nouns. Compare:

Nominativ______Ванная (noun)__________Красивая (adjective) [девушка]
Genitiv_________Ванной _________________Красивой [девушки]
Dative__________Ванной_________________Красивой [девушке]
Accusative______Ванную_________________Красивую [девушку]
Instrumental___Ванной__________________Красивой [девушкой]
Prepositional___[В] ванной_______________[О] красивой [девушке]

As you can see endings in all cases are the same. I suppose that initially all these words (прихожая, ванная, гостиная) were used with the word "комната", so they behave like adjectives. But it's too long for pronouncing and we usually omit the word "room". But it will not be a mistake if you say ванная комната, гостиная комната, прихожая комната, детская комната.

This week I've been checking the prepositional case and noticed that, no matter how much you learn, there are always questions. Now I understand it perfectly. So despite being nouns they behave like adjectives, because in the past they used to be adjectives.

Спасибо!