Breakdown of Врач посоветовал долгий отпуск нашей маленькой племяннице.
врач
doctor
маленький
small
наш
our
отпуск
vacation
долгий
long (of time)
посоветовать
to advise (perfective)
племянница
niece
Questions & Answers about Врач посоветовал долгий отпуск нашей маленькой племяннице.
Why is the phrase "our little niece" translated as нашей маленькой племяннице?
The verb посоветовал (advised) requires the Dative case for the person receiving the advice. The feminine noun племянница changes to племяннице. To match the noun, the possessive pronoun наша changes to нашей and the adjective маленькая changes to маленькой.
Why do нашей and маленькой have different endings if they are both feminine Dative?
Most feminine adjectives and pronouns take the -ой ending in the Dative case, like маленькой. However, наша changes to нашей because of a spelling rule: after the "hissing" consonant ш, an unstressed о is replaced by an е.
If долгий отпуск (a long vacation) is the direct object, why didn't its endings change?
It actually is in the Accusative case, which is used for direct objects. But because отпуск is a masculine inanimate noun (not a person or animal), its Accusative form is identical to its Nominative (dictionary) form. The adjective долгий follows the exact same rule and stays unchanged here.
Why use the perfective verb посоветовал instead of the imperfective советовал?
Посоветовал emphasizes that giving the advice was a single, completed action in the past. If we used советовал, it would sound like the doctor was repeatedly advising this over a long period of time, or that we were focusing on the process of him giving the advice.
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