Breakdown of Хирург работал всю ночь.
ночь
night
работать
to work
весь
all, the whole, everything, everyone
хирург
surgeon
Questions & Answers about Хирург работал всю ночь.
Why is the imperfective verb работал used here instead of a perfective verb?
The sentence uses the time phrase всю ночь (all night), which emphasizes the continuous duration of the action. In Russian, when you state how long an action lasted, you must use the imperfective aspect.
Why is there no preposition before всю ночь to mean 'for' or 'during' the night?
To express how long an action takes (duration), Russian simply puts the time phrase in the accusative case without any preposition. So, всю ночь directly expresses 'for the whole night' or 'all night long' all on its own.
ночь looks like it is in the nominative case. How do we know it is in the accusative here?
ночь is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign (-ь), belonging to the 3rd declension. For these nouns, the accusative form is identical to the nominative form. We know the whole phrase is in the accusative case because the modifier весь (all) changes to its feminine accusative form, всю.
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