Breakdown of Сотрудники работают в отделении и в лаборатории.
и
and
работать
to work
в
in / to (direction)
сотрудник
employee
лаборатория
laboratory
отделение
department (branch, ward)
Questions & Answers about Сотрудники работают в отделении и в лаборатории.
Why do both отделении and лаборатории end in -ии instead of the usual Prepositional -е?
The base words are отделение (department) and лаборатория (laboratory). Because they end in -ие and -ия in their dictionary forms, they take the special ending -ии in the Prepositional case instead of the standard -е.
Could отделении be plural here since it ends in an -и sound?
It is singular! While -и is a common Nominative plural ending, here we are looking at the Prepositional singular form. If they were working in multiple departments, the plural Prepositional form would be в отделениях.
Why is the preposition в repeated before лаборатории?
In Russian, when you list multiple locations connected by и (and), you should almost always repeat the preposition for each noun. Dropping the second в would sound unnatural to a native speaker.
Does the word сотрудники share a root with the word for work or labor?
Yes! The root is труд, which means labor or effort. Combined with the prefix со- (meaning co- or together), a сотрудник is literally a co-worker or collaborator. Here it is in the Nominative plural form.
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