Breakdown of Фасад здания, построенного архитектором, очень красивый.
здание
building
красивый
beautiful
очень
very
архитектор
architect
построить
to build (perfective)
фасад
facade
Questions & Answers about Фасад здания, построенного архитектором, очень красивый.
If I wanted to use a который clause instead of the participle here, how would it look?
You would say здания, которое было построено архитектором. When reducing this to a participial phrase, you drop которое было and change the short-form participle построено into the long-form построенного. The long form must then match the case of the noun it modifies (здания, which is genitive).
Why is the participle построенного in the genitive case here?
Past passive participles decline exactly like adjectives, meaning they must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Because it describes здания (the genitive singular form of здание, meaning "of the building"), the participle takes the neuter genitive ending -ого.
Why does the word for architect take the instrumental case (архитектором)?
Because построенного is a passive participle. In any Russian passive construction, the agent (the person or thing actually performing the action) is placed in the instrumental case to translate the English word "by". Here, it means "built by the architect".
Are the commas around построенного архитектором strictly required?
Yes! In Russian, when a participial phrase directly follows the noun it modifies (here, здания), it must be enclosed in commas. If you placed the phrase before the noun like an ordinary adjective (Фасад построенного архитектором здания...), you would drop the commas entirely.
Since the closest nouns are здания (neuter) and архитектором (masculine instrumental), why is the ending on красивый masculine nominative?
The adjective красивый is the main predicate of the sentence and describes the primary subject, Фасад (a masculine, nominative noun). The words between them simply provide more detail about which facade we are discussing, so they do not affect the agreement of the main adjective.
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