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Questions & Answers about Перчатка лежит на столе.
Why is there no article before перчатка (no equivalent of the or a)?
Russian does not use articles. Instead, definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context. Here перчатка can mean either a glove or the glove depending on the situation.
What case is перчатка in and why?
It is in the nominative singular case because перчатка is the grammatical subject of the sentence (it performs the action of lying).
What is the gender of перчатка, and how can you tell?
It is feminine: most Russian nouns ending in -а or -я are feminine, following the first declension pattern.
What case is столе in and why is it used here with на?
столе is in the prepositional singular case. When you want to express static location (“on” a place), you use на + prepositional case.
What does лежит mean, and what is its infinitive form? Also, what person and number is it?
лежит means lies or is lying. Its infinitive is лежать, meaning to lie (to rest in a horizontal position). It is third person singular present tense, so it translates as it lies or it is lying.
Why is лежит used here instead of other locational verbs like стоит or висит?
Russian uses different verbs for different positions: лежать is for objects lying flat, стоять for objects standing upright, and висеть for objects hanging.
Can the word order change? For example, could you say На столе лежит перчатка?
Yes. Russian has relatively free word order. Placing На столе at the beginning emphasizes the location; the overall meaning remains “The glove is lying on the table.”
Where are the stressed syllables in Перчатка лежит на столе?
Stress falls on the second syllable of each word: Перча́тка, лежи́т, столе́.