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Questions & Answers about Фонари погасли ночью.
What is the grammatical case of ночью?
ночью is the instrumental singular form of ночь. In Russian, the instrumental case is used for certain time expressions to mean “at” or “in” a part of the day (утром, днём, вечером, ночью).
Why isn’t there a preposition before ночью?
Time expressions like утром, днём, вечером and ночью always stand in the instrumental case without a preposition. Saying в ночью would be ungrammatical.
What is the aspect and meaning of the verb погасли?
погасли is the perfective past tense, 3rd person plural of погаснуть (“to go out,” “to extinguish”). The perfective aspect emphasizes the action’s completion—“the lamps went out” (and are now off).
What would фонари гасли ночью mean instead?
With гасли (imperfective past plural), you describe a process or repeated action: “the lamps were going out at night” (e.g. flickering or gradually dimming), without focusing on a single completed event.
Why is the verb in plural form погасли?
Because фонари is a plural subject in the nominative case, the past-tense verb must agree in number. Plural subjects take plural past-tense endings (here -ли).
Can I change the word order in this sentence?
Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible. You could say:
- Ночью фонари погасли.
- Фонари ночью погасли.
The basic meaning stays the same; shifting the order slightly changes the emphasis.
Where is the stress in погасли?
The stress falls on the second syllable: po-GAS-li (погáсли).
What is the singular form of фонари and its gender?
The singular is фонарь. It is masculine; the soft sign ь indicates a masculine noun ending in a consonant.
What does the prefix по- in погасли add to the base verb гаснуть?
Adding по- to гаснуть forms the perfective погаснуть, which signals that the action has a clear endpoint (the lamps fully switched off). Without по-, гаснуть (imperfective) describes the process of going out without implying completion.