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Questions & Answers about Полиция ищет убийцу.
English says "The police ARE looking", so why does the Russian sentence use the singular verb ищет?
In Russian, полиция is a singular feminine noun, referring to the police force as a single unit. Because it is grammatically singular, it must take the singular verb ищет (is looking), even though it translates to the plural "are looking" in English.
What is the infinitive of ищет, and why does its stem look so different?
The infinitive is искать (to look for). It undergoes a consonant mutation when conjugated, where the letters ск change to щ. This is a common pattern to memorize, giving us forms like я ищу (I am looking) and он ищет (he is looking).
Why does the word for killer (убийца) end in -у here?
The verb искать (to look for) takes a direct object in the accusative case. Even though a killer might be male, the noun убийца is a common-gender noun that ends in -а, so it follows standard feminine declension rules. In the accusative case, the -а changes to -у, making it убийцу.
Does искать (to look for) always take the accusative case? I thought it sometimes uses the genitive.
Great catch! It takes the accusative case when looking for a specific, concrete object or person (like the specific killer they are hunting here). It usually takes the genitive case when looking for something abstract or something that might not even exist (like looking for "peace" or "any job").