Breakdown of С северной стороны дворца растут старые деревья, а с южной — цветы.
Questions & Answers about С северной стороны дворца растут старые деревья, а с южной — цветы.
In this sentence, с means “from / on the side (facing something)”, not “with”.
- Literally, с северной стороны дворца = “from the northern side of the palace”.
- In practice, it’s often understood as “on the northern side (of the palace)”—it describes which side of the building something is on / comes from.
This is a very common pattern in Russian:
- с этой стороны дома – from/on this side of the house
- с другой стороны улицы – from/on the other side of the street
Северной стороны is in the Genitive singular (feminine):
- сторона (Nom. sg.) → стороны (Gen. sg.)
- северный (masc.) → северной (Gen. sg. fem., agreeing with стороны)
The preposition с in the sense “from (a surface, edge, side)” always takes the Genitive:
- с крыши – from the roof
- с берега – from the shore
- с правой стороны – from the right side
So you must say с северной стороны, not с северная сторона.
Дворца is in the Genitive singular because it depends on the noun стороны (“side of what?”):
- сторона (чего?) дворца – the side of the palace
So the structure is:
- с северной стороны (чего?) дворца
- с
- Genitive → стороны
- сторона (чего?) дворца → дворца also Genitive
- с
Two Genitives in a row here are normal: a preposition-governed noun (стороны) and then a dependent noun (дворца).
You can say both, but there is a nuance:
на северной стороне дворца – literally “on the northern side of the palace”
- Focuses more on location “on that side / surface”.
с северной стороны дворца – literally “from the northern side of the palace”
- Very idiomatic for describing where something is situated with respect to the object as a whole, or which side is characterized by something.
In your sentence (describing what grows on which side of the palace), с северной стороны / с южной sounds more natural and stylistically better than на северной стороне / на южной стороне. Both are grammatically correct, but с … стороны is the more typical choice here.
А contrasts two things; и simply adds them.
- и = “and” (just joining, no contrast)
- а = “and / whereas / but” (shows contrast or difference)
In the sentence:
- С северной стороны дворца растут старые деревья, а с южной — цветы.
we contrast:
- North side → trees
- South side → flowers
So а is appropriate: it suggests “while / whereas”, like:
- “On the north side of the palace grow old trees, whereas on the south side there are flowers.”
Using и here would sound weaker and ignore the clear contrast.
The dash marks omission of repeated words that are understood from the first part of the sentence.
Full, non-elliptical version would be:
- С северной стороны дворца растут старые деревья, а с южной стороны дворца растут цветы.
To avoid repetition, Russian often omits the repeated parts and uses a dash:
- … а с южной — цветы.
Here the dash stands in for стороны дворца растут. Native speakers automatically reconstruct:
- а с южной (стороны дворца) (растут) цветы.
The verb растут is understood from the first clause and not repeated; this is very normal in Russian coordination.
Full form:
- … растут старые деревья, а с южной стороны дворца растут цветы.
Shortened (actual sentence):
- … растут старые деревья, а с южной — цветы.
So logically it’s:
- (С северной стороны дворца) растут старые деревья, а (с южной стороны дворца) (растут) цветы.
The second растут is simply omitted to avoid redundancy. The dash helps signal the ellipsis.
Both are grammatically correct, but the emphasis is slightly different.
- Растут старые деревья.
- Verb first. Slight emphasis on the fact of growing, then specifying what grows. Neutral, descriptive, very natural in this type of sentence about what is found/located somewhere.
- Старые деревья растут.
- Subject first. Slightly more focus on старые деревья themselves, less typical in this exact “from this side grow X” pattern, but still correct.
In location/description sentences, Russian often uses [location] + [verb] + [subject]:
- В саду растут розы. – In the garden there are roses growing.
- На улице стоят машины. – There are cars standing in the street.
So С северной стороны дворца растут старые деревья fits that common pattern.
Растут is:
- Present tense
- Imperfective aspect
- 3rd person plural of расти (“to grow”)
Here it expresses a general, ongoing state / characteristic, not a momentary action. So it means something like:
- “(There) grow old trees” → “There are old trees growing / Old trees grow (there) in general.”
Imperfective present is the normal choice for describing what typically or permanently exists in a place.
They are the subjects of the verb растут (explicit in the first clause, understood in the second).
- деревья – Nom. pl. of дерево
- старые – Nom. pl. adjective agreeing with деревья
- цветы – Nom. pl. of цветок
Structure:
- (Что?) старые деревья (что делают?) растут. – subject + verb
- (Что?) цветы (что делают?) растут (understood).
Subjects in Russian are normally in the Nominative case, which is why these nouns (and the adjective старые) are in Nominative plural.
Each adjective agrees with its noun in gender, number, and case:
с северной стороны
- сторона – fem., Gen. sg. → стороны
- северный → северной (fem., Gen. sg., to match стороны)
старые деревья
- дерево – neuter, but here plural → деревья (Nom. pl.)
- старый → старые (Nom. pl., to match деревья)
с южной — цветы
- Understood: с южной стороны
- сторона again fem., Gen. sg. → so южной = fem., Gen. sg.
- цветы is a separate noun phrase (Nom. pl., subject) and takes no adjective here.
So:
- Gen. sg. fem.: северной, южной (agreeing with стороны)
- Nom. pl. (mixed-gender plural subject): старые деревья, цветы in Nom. pl.