Breakdown of Родители строго запретили сыну курить.
сын
son
родитель
parent
курить
to smoke
строго
strictly
запретить
to forbid
Questions & Answers about Родители строго запретили сыну курить.
Why is сыну in the Dative case here instead of the Accusative?
The verb запретить (to forbid) dictates the case of its object. Just like verbs of assisting, advising, or allowing, it requires the Dative case without a preposition for the person receiving the command. You can think of it as directing a prohibition 'to' the son.
Why use the imperfective infinitive курить when the main verb запретили is perfective?
When forbidding or stopping an action, Russian typically uses the imperfective infinitive. This is because the entire process or habit is being banned in general, not just a single, completed instance. They forbade the ongoing act of smoking.
The English translation says 'their son,' but there is no word for 'their' in the Russian sentence. Why is it missing?
In Russian, possessive pronouns like своему (one's own) or их (their) are usually dropped when the context makes it obvious. It is naturally assumed the parents are addressing their own son, so adding a pronoun would sound unnatural.
Is the placement of the adverb строго strict, or could it go elsewhere?
Russian word order is flexible, so you could move it around, but placing an adverb immediately before the verb it modifies is the most standard and neutral way to describe how the action was done.
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