Word
Он выпил рюмку коньяку и ушёл.
Meaning
He drank a shot glass of cognac and left.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Он выпил рюмку коньяку и ушёл.
и
and
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
выпить
to drink (perfective)
уйти
to leave (on foot, pf) / to retreat into solitude
Questions & Answers about Он выпил рюмку коньяку и ушёл.
Why does the word for cognac end in -у (коньяку) instead of the normal genitive -а (коньяка)?
This is the Partitive Genitive (sometimes called the Second Genitive). For certain uncountable mass nouns like drinks, foods, or materials, an -у or -ю ending is used to mean a quantity or 'some of' that thing. Because we are talking about a specific measure (a shot glass) of cognac, коньяку is used here.
Could I just use the regular genitive and say рюмку коньяка?
Yes, absolutely! In modern Russian, the regular genitive (коньяка) is completely correct and actually more common. The -у ending can sound a bit old-fashioned or folksy for many words, though it survives strongly in set phrases like чашка чаю (a cup of tea) and expressions of quantity like this one.
Why is рюмку in the accusative case here?
Because it is the direct object of the verb выпил (drank). The grammatical action of drinking happens to the container (the shot glass), and then the partitive genitive describes what is inside that container.
Both verbs (выпил, ушёл) are perfective. What does that tell us about the timeline of events?
When you have a sequence of perfective verbs in the past tense, it means the actions happened one after the other in a completed chain. He completely finished drinking the shot, and then he left. Using imperfective verbs would imply the actions were happening at the same time.