Breakdown of Она полностью раскаивается в своём преступлении.
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
свой
one's own
преступление
crime
полностью
completely
в
of (in accusations, confessions, oaths)
раскаиваться
to repent
Questions & Answers about Она полностью раскаивается в своём преступлении.
Why do we use в plus the Prepositional case for 'repents of'?
Verbs dealing with internal conviction, confession, or repentance, like раскаиваться, require в followed by the Prepositional case. Instead of the English concept of repenting 'of' or 'for' something, Russian frames it as being deeply immersed 'in' the reality of those actions.
Why does преступлении end in -ии instead of the standard Prepositional -е?
The dictionary form is преступление, which is a neuter noun ending in -ие. As a rule, nouns ending in -ия, -ий, and -ие take an -и ending in the Prepositional case rather than a -е. Therefore, it becomes в преступлении.
Could I use её instead of своём to say 'her crime'?
You really need to use своём here. Whenever the subject of the sentence (in this case, Она) is the owner of the object, Russian strictly prefers the reflexive pronoun свой. If you used её, a native speaker would assume she is repenting for a different woman's crime!
What is the non-reflexive form of раскаивается?
There isn't one! The verb раскаиваться only exists with the reflexive -ся ending. It belongs to a category of Russian verbs describing deep internal states or emotions that are contained entirely within the subject.
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