Breakdown of Большинство матросов поддержало бунт и сломало компас.
и
and
большинство
majority
сломать
to break (snap, damage, machines)
поддержать
to support (perfective)
матрос
sailor (rank, ordinary seaman)
компас
compass
бунт
mutiny
Questions & Answers about Большинство матросов поддержало бунт и сломало компас.
Why are the verbs поддержало and сломало in the neuter singular form when the actors are plural?
The grammatical subject of the sentence is the word большинство (majority), which is a neuter singular noun. Even though it's followed by the plural матросов, the verbs agree formally with большинство, which is why they take the neuter past-tense ending -о.
Could we use the plural verbs поддержали and сломали instead?
Yes! When большинство is followed by an animate plural noun in the Genitive case (like матросов), using a plural verb is very common and completely correct. The plural emphasizes the active participation of the individual sailors, whereas the neuter singular treats them as a single collective block.
Why don't the direct objects бунт (mutiny) and компас (compass) change their endings?
They actually are in the Accusative case because they are the direct objects of the actions. However, since both are masculine inanimate nouns, their Accusative forms are completely identical to their Nominative (dictionary) forms.
What is the imperfective pair for поддержало, and why did the speaker choose perfective here?
The imperfective is поддерживало. The perfective поддержало is used because this describes a specific, completed event with a result, rather than a background state. It sets up a chain of consecutive completed actions: first they threw their support behind the mutiny, and then they broke the compass.
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