Breakdown of У мужчины есть алиби. Он говорит, что спал.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
мужчина
man
говорить
to speak, to talk
у
at, by
есть
is, there is, to have
что
that (conjunction)
спать
to sleep
алиби
alibi
Questions & Answers about У мужчины есть алиби. Он говорит, что спал.
Why is there no word for "he" before спал?
In Russian, when the person doing the action is the same in both parts of the sentence, you can drop the second pronoun. You could say Он говорит, что он спал, but simply saying что спал sounds much more natural and avoids repetition.
Can we skip the word что here, just like we often skip "that" in English?
No, you cannot skip it. In English, we can say "He says he was sleeping" or "He says that he was sleeping." In Russian, you must always include что to introduce a reported statement. Also, remember to pronounce it as "shto"!
Why is the ending -ы used for мужчины? Isn't "man" a masculine word?
Yes, мужчина is a masculine word, but because it ends in -а, it follows the same ending rules as feminine nouns. To say "someone has" using the У + genitive case structure, the -а changes to -ы, giving us У мужчины.
What gender is the word алиби and how does it change in different cases?
алиби is a neuter noun, but because it is borrowed from another language and ends in the vowel -и, it is indeclinable. This means it never changes its ending, no matter what grammatical case is required by the sentence.
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