Word
Почему этот кот пьёт молоко?
Meaning
Why is this cat drinking milk?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Почему этот кот пьёт молоко?
Why does the verb пьёт (is drinking) look so different from its dictionary form пить?
Пить (to drink) is a high-frequency irregular verb. Instead of dropping -ть and adding normal endings, it uses a soft sign (ь) and ё-based endings. The pattern is: я пью, ты пьёшь, он/она/оно пьёт (he/she/it drinks), мы пьём, вы пьёте, они пьют.
Why use этот кот instead of эта кошка for 'this cat'?
Кот is specifically a male cat, which is a masculine noun, so it requires the masculine word for 'this' (этот). Кошка is grammatically feminine and uses эта; it means a female cat, or is used as the generic word for a cat when the gender is unknown.
The milk is being drunk, so shouldn't молоко be in the accusative (direct object) case?
It is in the accusative case! However, молоко is a neuter noun (ending in -о). Neuter nouns do not change their spelling when they become direct objects, so the accusative form looks exactly the same as the dictionary form.
Does the soft sign (ь) in пьёт change how the word is pronounced?