Breakdown of Пятьдесят человек потеряли работу, а смертность среди бедных возрастала.
а
and (contrastive)
человек
person
работа
work, job
бедный
poor
потерять
to lose (perfective)
пятьдесят
fifty
среди
among
возрастать
to rise (in amount or intensity)
смертность
death rate
Questions & Answers about Пятьдесят человек потеряли работу, а смертность среди бедных возрастала.
Why is the verb потеряли in the plural here, rather than the neuter singular потеряло?
When a subject consists of a number plus an animate noun (like человек), and the verb describes an active, conscious action (losing a job), Russian strongly prefers the plural verb (потеряли). The neuter singular (потеряло) is generally used for inanimate objects, passive states, or when emphasizing the quantity itself as a single unit.
After the number 50, why is the genitive plural человек instead of людей?
After exact numbers from five and up (like пятьдесят), the genitive plural of 'person' is simply человек. You use людей for the genitive plural with words of indefinite quantity (like много людей) or in phrases without numbers.
Why are the verbs in different aspects: perfective потеряли but imperfective возрастала?
This contrasts a completed event with an ongoing background process. Losing the jobs is stated as a factual, completed result (perfective), while the death rate was in the continuous process of rising over a period of time (imperfective).
What grammar rule is at play in the phrase среди бедных?
The preposition среди (among) always takes the genitive case. Here, бедных is the genitive plural of the adjective бедный. It is used here as a substantivized adjective, meaning it acts as a noun to mean 'the poor'.
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