"У меня нет кошек."

Translation: I do not have cats.

[CJlon]

How does "кошка" become "кошек"?

[Vortarulo]

Feminine nouns ending in -а or -я lose that ending in the genitive plural. Frequently there is an extra -e- or -o- shoved inbetween the last consonants to facilitate pronunciation. The ending for the genitive plural is called a "zero-morpheme" (like: кошк-ø, which then surfaces as кошек). The genitive plural of книга, for instance, is книг.

[daadaadaaren]

is this only for fem. pl. or do all genders share the same pattern of null pl. genitive

[zirkul]

"кошки" (plural) becomes "кошек" because "нет" takes genitive.

[narutorules24]

because that is the plural way how you say it.

[gssc17]

That is exactly my question.

[AdamInSDnow]

Would there be a different phrasing equivalent to "I don't have a cat," or is it the same?

[RandomCanadian12]

my guess is "у меня нет кошки".

[zirkul]

That's correct.

[inushuman]

I recall learning that to say you have no cats, it is sufficient to say "У меня нет кошки" because the genitive singular effectively is saying "I have none of cat." So if you are asked "У тебя есть кошка?" you could respond "Нет, у меня нет кошки." In what context would one say "У меня нет кошек." ? Would it be if someone asked about a quantity greater than one, such as "У тебя много кошки?" ?

[Raicchi_]

Maybe when you dont have "cats", but you do have "a" cat.q