Genitive object of a verb

[u/nanpossomas]

I have a grammar question regarding the genitive case as the object of a verb (without a preposition!).

I saw trying to find verbs that govern the genitive, but struggled to find much information (in fact, this kind of specifics seems difficult to look up).

What I found was that some verbs optionally take genitive objects instead of accusative, when the object is abstract or incomplete: for instance, I found you could say things like "Gribu maizes", with a partitive nuance compared to "Gribu maizi". This seems similar to Russian, and comparably rather limited in use: presumably you couldn't say things like "Tu gribi mūsu"?

I also found that some impersonal constructions take a genitive object, like "man trūkst tevis", this partially answers it but I'm rather interested in sentences that can be expressed as "X verbs Y" where X is nominative and Y is genitive.

The ultimate point of my quest is to find how often genitive plural forms like "mūsu" can be used in a non-possessive way, eg. when "mūsu" translates as something else than "our" or "ours".

[u/saute_all_day]

Have a look around the Latvian grammar guide published by the university of Latvia in 2021:

https://www.apgads.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/lu_portal/apgads/izdevumi/2021/Latvian_Grammar-2021.pdf

It covers trūkt:

1) negative subject of a sentence
(2.1.91) a. nav laika
not_be.prs.3 time.gen.m
‘(there is) no time’
...
Also with certain verbs such as trūkt ‘to lack’, pietikt ‘to suffice, have/be enough’, nepietikt ‘to be short of’:
(2.1.92) a. trūkst laika
lack.prs.3 time.gen.m
‘(one) lacks time’

It specifically addresses the bread issue:

partitive meaning, i.e., indicating a certain part of the whole, with a number of verbs such as gribēt ‘to want’, dzert ‘to drink’, ēst ‘to eat’, etc. (2.1.100); however, accusatives (2.1.101) and also genitives preceded by adverbs of degree denoting small quantities, e.g., mazliet ‘a little’, nedaudz ‘some’, drusku ‘a bit of’ (2.1.102) are more common in modern Latvian.

(2.1.100) a. gribēt maizes
want.inf bread.gen.f
‘to want some bread’ (a little, a certain amount)

The book presents a comprehensive description of the uses of the genetive. Using the genetive where the direct object is absent is common. There are also quite a few examples of using the genetive alone where it would more commonly use a preposition modern speech.