Autor napsal příběh.

The author wrote a story.

Breakdown of Autor napsal příběh.

• příběh: the story
• napsat: to write
• autor: the author

Questions & Answers about Autor napsal příběh.

What case is autor, and why is it in that case?

Autor is in the nominative singular because it is the subject of the sentence — the person doing the action.

In Autor napsal příběh, the author is the one who wrote something, so Czech uses the nominative for autor.

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• autor = nominative singular
• It answers who wrote? → autor

Why is příběh in this form? Shouldn’t it change?

Příběh is the direct object, so it is in the accusative singular.

However, for many masculine inanimate nouns in Czech, the accusative singular looks exactly the same as the nominative singular. That is what happens here.

So:

• nominative: příběh
• accusative: příběh

Even though the form does not change, the function does:

• Autor = the doer
• příběh = the thing written

What exactly does napsal mean?

Napsal is the past tense of napsat, which means to write down / to write and finish.

So napsal means:

• wrote
• sometimes also has written, depending on context

A very important point is that napsat is perfective, so napsal usually suggests the action was completed.

So this sentence does not just mean that the author was engaged in writing; it suggests that the story was successfully written.