Breakdown of Следователь арестовал и преступника, и его брата.
и
and
брат
brother
преступник
criminal
его
his / its (possessive)
следователь
the investigator
арестовать
to arrest
Questions & Answers about Следователь арестовал и преступника, и его брата.
Why are there two instances of и in this sentence?
When you use the structure и ..., и ..., it translates to 'both ... and ...'. Here, и преступника, и его брата means 'both the criminal and his brother'. It adds emphasis compared to using just a single и for 'and'.
Why is there a comma before the second и?
In Russian punctuation, when you have a repeated conjunction like и ..., и ... (both... and...) or или ..., или ... (either... or...), you must always place a comma before the second part of the list.
Both преступник (criminal) and брат (brother) are the direct objects of the verb. Why do they end in -а instead of -у?
They are in the accusative case because they are direct objects. However, for animate masculine nouns (people and animals), the accusative case endings are identical to the genitive case endings. So, преступник becomes преступника and брат becomes брата.
Why doesn't его (his) change its ending to match the accusative case of брата?
The word его is the possessive form of он (he). Unlike adjectives and the possessive words мой (my) or наш (our), the third-person possessives (его, её, их) are frozen and never change their endings, regardless of the noun's case, gender, or number.
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