Thread:User talk:CodeCat/Gender for подслушивание/reply (2)

Not all neuter noun declensions may have animate/inanimate forms (there may simply be no neuter animate nouns for a given declension type) but чадо/жало, чудовище/туловище show that there is a difference in declensions. The rule for determining this in the plural is the same for all genders - animate nouns in the accusative are equal to genitive, inanimate to nominative. Masculine nouns have the same rule in the singular as well. Yes, this should change. I have just confirmed this in Zaliznyak's Russian grammar dictionary. BTW, he uses чадо and чудовище as animate examples and shows the rule in a declension table.