Breakdown of Podejrzany został przesłuchany i oskarżony.
i
and
podejrzany
suspect
zostać
to be (passive auxiliary)
przesłuchać
to interrogate
oskarżyć
to accuse
Questions & Answers about Podejrzany został przesłuchany i oskarżony.
Why does this sentence use został instead of był to mean "was"?
This sentence uses the dynamic passive voice to show that an action was completed. We use został (the past tense of zostać, meaning "to become") along with perfective participles to focus on the event itself taking place. If we used był, it would create a static passive, which focuses on an ongoing action or the resulting state of being, rather than the completed event of being interrogated and accused.
Podejrzany looks like an adjective. Why is it the subject of the sentence?
Podejrzany literally means "suspected" and is structurally a passive participle, which declines just like a normal adjective. However, in Polish, words describing people are very often used directly as nouns without changing their form. Here, it functions as a noun meaning "the suspect".
Why do the participles przesłuchany and oskarżony end in -y?
Passive participles act exactly like adjectives, meaning they must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they describe. Because the subject podejrzany is masculine, singular, and in the nominative case, both participles take the standard masculine singular ending -y. If the suspect were female (podejrzana), they would change to przesłuchana and oskarżona.
Do we need to repeat the word został before oskarżony?
No, you don't. Just like in English where we say "was interrogated and accused" instead of "was interrogated and was accused", you can use a single auxiliary verb (został) for multiple actions as long as they apply to the same subject and are connected by i (and).
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