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Questions & Answers about Мой местный магазин маленький.
What does the word Мой mean, and why is it in this form here?
Мой means “my.” It is the masculine singular possessive pronoun used to refer to something that belongs to the speaker. Since магазин (store) is a masculine singular noun, Мой is the correct form for agreement in gender and number.
Why is there no linking verb like “is” in the sentence?
In Russian, the present tense form of the verb “to be” is typically omitted. When describing a subject with an adjective, it is understood that the subject “is” that adjective. Therefore, магазин маленький conveys “the store is small” without needing an explicit word for “is.”
How do the adjectives местный and маленький agree with the noun магазин?
Both adjectives agree with магазин in gender, number, and case—they are in the nominative masculine singular form. Местный directly modifies the noun as an attributive adjective, while маленький acts as a predicate adjective, but both must match the noun’s form in the sentence.
Why is местный placed before the noun while маленький follows it?
In Russian, adjectives that modify a noun (attributive adjectives) usually come before the noun, so местный appears at the beginning to mean “local.” On the other hand, маленький is positioned after the noun to serve as a predicate adjective, effectively describing the state of the store as “small.” This separation is common in Russian sentence structure.
What is the overall word order used in this sentence, and how flexible is it in Russian?
The sentence follows a common order: the possessive pronoun and attributive adjective come first (Мой местный магазин), followed by the predicate adjective (маленький). Although Russian allows flexible word order to emphasize different parts of the sentence, this arrangement clearly indicates that “My local store is small.”