Breakdown of Pe acest teritoriu se respectă legile internaționale.
pe
on
acest
this
respecta
to respect
se
oneself / impersonal particle (as in "English is spoken here")
Questions & Answers about Pe acest teritoriu se respectă legile internaționale.
Why use se respectă here instead of translating 'are respected' directly as sunt respectate?
Romanian frequently uses the reflexive pronoun se alongside the active verb to form the passive voice, especially for general rules or statements where the doer of the action is unknown or irrelevant. While sunt respectate is grammatically correct, se respectă is much more natural and common in everyday Romanian for expressing 'are respected' in a broad sense.
Why does the subject legile internaționale come after the verb?
Since legile is plural, shouldn't the verb respectă have a plural form?
It actually is in the plural form here. For the verb a respecta (to respect), the third-person singular and the third-person plural forms are identical: respectă.
Why do we use acest teritoriu instead of the genitive/dative form acestui teritoriu?
The preposition pe (on) always takes the accusative case. For demonstrative adjectives like acest and nouns like teritoriu, the accusative form is identical to the standard dictionary form (nominative). You would only use acestui for genitive (of this) or dative (to this) situations.