Breakdown of Кот убегает, когда видит собаку.
кот
cat
собака
dog
видеть
to see
когда
when
убегать
to run away (imperfective)
Questions & Answers about Кот убегает, когда видит собаку.
This lesson is about the prefix от-. Why does this sentence use the prefix у- (убегает) instead of отбегает?
This is a great contrast! The prefix от- means moving a short distance away from something specific, like backing away or stepping aside. The prefix у- means leaving a place completely or being absent. Because the cat isn't just taking a few steps back, but is actively fleeing the area, убегает is the natural choice.
I remember бегать is the multidirectional verb for running. Why is it used in убегает if the cat is running in one direction away from the dog?
When you add prefixes to verbs of motion, the old "direction" rules disappear and are replaced by aspect rules. Adding a prefix to a multidirectional verb (бегать) creates an imperfective verb (убегать). Adding it to a unidirectional verb (бежать) creates a perfective verb (убежать). Since the cat runs away regularly (a repeated, general fact whenever it sees a dog), we need the imperfective убегает.
Since a dog is a living thing, why isn't the animate accusative rule used here? Shouldn't it look like the genitive case?
The special "animate accusative" rule (where the Accusative case copies the Genitive case) only applies to masculine singular nouns and all plural nouns. For feminine singular nouns like собака, you always change the -а to -у in the Accusative case (собаку), regardless of whether the noun is alive or not.
Why isn't there a pronoun before видит, like когда он видит?
In Russian, when the subject is exactly the same in both clauses of a sentence (the cat is both running and seeing), it is very common and natural to drop the pronoun in the second half. You can include он, but leaving it out sounds less repetitive.
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