Breakdown of На экскурсии ни студенты, ни гости не задавали вопросов.
на
on
не
not
вопрос
the question
гость
the guest
студент
the student
экскурсия
the tour
ни … ни
neither ... nor
задавать
to ask
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Questions & Answers about На экскурсии ни студенты, ни гости не задавали вопросов.
What does the construction ни студенты, ни гости mean in English?
It uses the correlative conjunction neither … nor …, so ни студенты, ни гости translates as neither the students nor the guests.
Why are студенты and гости in the nominative case, and why does ни appear before each noun?
They are the sentence’s subjects and thus take the nominative case. In Russian the pair ни … ни … requires placing ни before each element you want to join in a “neither … nor …” construction.
Why is вопросов in the genitive plural rather than the accusative?
In negative sentences Russian often uses the partitive or “genitive of negation” for indefinite objects. Instead of не задавали вопросы (accusative) you say не задавали вопросов to mean did not ask any questions.
What function does На экскурсии serve, and why is it in the prepositional case?
This phrase is an adverbial modifier indicating the setting or context (during the tour). The preposition на with the noun экскурсия takes the prepositional singular экскурсии.
Why is there a double negative—ни … ни … plus не? Doesn’t double negation cancel out?
Unlike in English, Russian uses negative concord: multiple negative elements reinforce a single negation instead of canceling. Here both ни … ни … and the verb’s не work together to express a full negation (“didn’t ask at all”).
Could you use и instead of ни … ни … (for example, студенты и гости не задавали вопросов)? What’s the difference?
Yes, студенты и гости не задавали вопросов is grammatically correct and means students and guests didn’t ask any questions. However, ни … ни … places stronger emphasis on the fact that neither group asked questions.
Why is the verb задавали in the imperfective past tense? Could you use the perfective задали instead?
The imperfective задавали highlights that throughout the excursion no questions were posed as an ongoing or habitual non-action. If you switch to the perfective не задали, you would typically add something like ни одного вопроса (not a single question) to focus on the non-occurrence of a completed action.