Word
To jest pies, którego widział na zewnątrz ogrodzenia.
Meaning
This is the dog which he saw outside the fence.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of To jest pies, którego widział na zewnątrz ogrodzenia.
to
this
być
to be
pies
dog
widzieć
to see
Questions & Answers about To jest pies, którego widział na zewnątrz ogrodzenia.
Why does ogrodzenia take the Genitive case here?
The compound spatial preposition na zewnątrz (outside) always requires the noun that follows it to be in the Genitive case. Here, the neuter noun ogrodzenie (fence) drops its final -e and takes the Genitive ending -a to become ogrodzenia.
Why do we use którego instead of który for "which"?
A relative pronoun matches the gender of the noun it refers to (pies, masculine animate), but its case depends on its grammatical role in its own clause. Since he saw the dog, the dog is the direct object of widział, requiring the Accusative case. For masculine animate nouns, the Accusative form is identical to the Genitive form: którego.
Could którego widział also mean "which saw him"?
No. If the dog were doing the seeing, "which" would be the subject and take the Nominative case (który), and "him" would be the direct object (go), resulting in który go widział. Because we see the object form którego, we know the dog is the one being seen by an implied "he".
Do I always have to use a noun after na zewnątrz?
No. Na zewnątrz can also function on its own as an adverb meaning simply "outside" (for example, on stoi na zewnątrz means "he is standing outside"). But when you specify exactly what something is outside of, it acts as a preposition and requires a following noun in the Genitive case.