Breakdown of Продавець відповів споживачеві.
відповісти
to answer
продавець
the seller
споживач
the consumer
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Questions & Answers about Продавець відповів споживачеві.
Why is споживачеві in that form? What case is it?
Споживачеві is dative singular.
In this sentence:
- Продавець = nominative singular subject
- відповів = past-tense verb
- споживачеві = dative singular, the person who received the answer
A very common Ukrainian pattern is that the person you answer is put in the dative, not the accusative.
Why does Ukrainian use the dative here instead of the accusative, like English does in answered the consumer?
Because the verb відповісти / відповідати simply governs the dative for the person being answered.
So Ukrainian thinks of this as something like:
- to give an answer to someone
That is why you get:
- відповісти комусь = to answer someone
- відповідати комусь = to answer someone / be answering someone
Even though English uses a direct object, Ukrainian uses a dative object here.
Could споживачеві also be споживачу?