Breakdown of В саду есть не только комфортная беседка, но и новая площадка.
новый
new
в
in / to (direction)
есть
is, there is, to have
сад
garden
Questions & Answers about В саду есть не только комфортная беседка, но и новая площадка.
How exactly does the structure не только ..., но и ... work in this sentence?
It translates to 'not only ..., but also ...'. Notice how it connects two identical grammatical structures—in this case, two Nominative noun phrases (комфортная беседка and новая площадка). This parallelism is strongly preferred when using correlative double conjunctions in Russian.
Is the comma before но и strictly necessary?
Yes. In Russian, you must always place a comma before the second half of a double conjunction like не только ..., но и ..., just as you would before a standard но or а.
Why is it В саду with a -у ending instead of the regular Prepositional ending -е?
Сад (garden) is one of the short, mostly monosyllabic masculine nouns that take a special Locative -у ending when used with the prepositions в or на to indicate physical location (similar to в лесу or на полу). Note that the stress always shifts to this ending: в саду́.
Why are беседка and площадка in the Nominative case if they are things located in the garden?
Because of the word есть (is/are). This is an existential sentence, meaning the things that "exist" in the garden are actually the grammatical subjects of the sentence. Therefore, they both take the Nominative case.
What kind of spaces are a беседка and a площадка?