The paper analyzes the uses of the Russian accusative and locative in which they
are directly opposed to one another. It is demonstrated that in spatial contexts
the accusative denotes change of contact, whereas the locative denotes
permanent contact. This is a manifestation of the crucial distinction between
dynamicity and stativity within the prepositional case system of Russian in
which the accusative and the locative are regarded as contact cases while all
others are regarded as non-contact cases. In temporal contexts the notion of
time is treated as space when the locative is used – either as location or a set
of elements. This means that the accusative is alone in expressing time in its
own right, where the speaker makes contact with a timeline. In addition, the
semantic contribution of the prepositions v ‘in’ and na ‘on’ to the accusative
and locative cases is shown.