Breakdown of Наша инфраструктура финансируется государством.
наш
our (наш, наша, наше)
государство
the state
инфраструктура
infrastructure
финансировать
to finance
Questions & Answers about Наша инфраструктура финансируется государством.
How does the register of this sentence affect whether we use the active or passive voice?
Using the passive voice with an instrumental agent like государством sounds quite formal, perfectly matching the bureaucratic register of words like инфраструктура. In everyday casual speech, Russians strongly prefer the active voice, so they would instead say Государство финансирует нашу инфраструктуру.
Why use the reflexive verb финансируется here to make it passive, rather than a passive participle?
In Russian, the present tense passive voice is almost always formed using an imperfective verb with the reflexive suffix -ся. Short passive participles are generally reserved for perfective past actions. Because the funding of the infrastructure is an ongoing present action, the imperfective passive финансируется is required.
Why is the word государством in the instrumental case?
In Russian passive voice sentences, the logical subject (the entity actually performing the action) takes the instrumental case. Here, the state is doing the financing, so государство becomes государством, acting as the equivalent of the English "by the state".
Why does the verb stem change from финансирова- to финансиру-?
The verb финансировать (to finance) is a loanword ending in the suffix -овать. A key rule for these verbs is that in the present tense, the -ова- suffix changes to -у-. This is why the third-person singular form is финансирует, which then takes the -ся ending for the passive voice to become финансируется.
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