Breakdown of Никто не видит уток, плавающих около набережной.
не
not
видеть
to see
плавать
to swim
никто
nobody
Questions & Answers about Никто не видит уток, плавающих около набережной.
How do we build the participle плавающих from the verb плавать?
Плавать (to swim) is an imperfective verb. To form the active present participle, we take the "they" form of the present tense, плавают (they swim), drop the final -т, and add -щий to get the dictionary form плавающий. To match the plural noun it describes in this sentence, it takes a plural ending.
What case are уток and плавающих in here?
They are in the accusative plural. Because ducks are living things (animate nouns), their accusative plural is identical to the genitive plural. The nominative plural of утка is утки, and its animate accusative is уток. The participle плавающих must match this case and number. Note: Because of the negated verb (не видит), this could also be analyzed as the genitive of negation, but the resulting forms are identical either way!
Why is there a comma before плавающих?
In Russian, when a participle clause (the participle plus its dependent words, like плавающих около набережной) is placed after the noun it describes (уток), you must separate it with a comma. If the clause came before the noun (...плавающих около набережной уток), you wouldn't use a comma at all.
Why does the noun набережной have an adjective ending?