Breakdown of Она помогла ему не из жалости.
не
not
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
помочь
to help (perfective)
из
out of
жалость
pity
Questions & Answers about Она помогла ему не из жалости.
Why do we use из instead of от to say out of pity here?
In Russian, из is used with the Genitive case to express a conscious motive or internal reason that drives an intentional action. She chose to help him, and we are talking about her motive. If pity had caused an involuntary physical or emotional reaction—like crying or trembling—we would use от жалости instead.
Why is the word for pity spelled жалости here?
It is in the Genitive case, which is required by the preposition из. The dictionary form is жалость. Because it is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign (a 3rd declension noun, like вещь or ночь), its Genitive ending is -и.
What would it mean if не was placed before the verb (Она не помогла...)?
The particle не only negates the word or phrase immediately following it. Putting it before из means she did help him, but her motive was not pity. If you wrote Она не помогла ему из жалости, it would mean she refused to help him, and her reason for refusing was pity.
Why is the pronoun ему used instead of его?
The verb помочь (to help) and its imperfective pair помогать always take the Dative case for the person receiving the help. Therefore, we use the Dative ему rather than the Accusative его, even though English uses a direct object here.
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