Breakdown of Я смутно помню, то ли он бормотал что-то, то ли пел.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
я
I
помнить
to remember
петь
to sing
что-то
something
смутно
vaguely
то ли
either ... or (expressing doubt)
бормотать
to mutter
Questions & Answers about Я смутно помню, то ли он бормотал что-то, то ли пел.
Why use то ли ..., то ли ... here instead of the standard или ..., или ... (either... or...)?
While или ..., или ... simply presents two factual alternatives, то ли ..., то ли ... injects a strong sense of the speaker's own uncertainty, confusion, or poor memory. It means you are guessing about your own perception, which perfectly matches the phrase смутно помню (I vaguely remember).
Could I use the standard indirect question construction (ли ..., или ...) for this sentence?
No, because ли ..., или ... is used for objective indirect questions, like asking someone if they know a fact. Here, you are stating your own subjective memory lapse. то ли ..., то ли ... is specifically for epistemic doubt—when you are unsure of the reality of what you saw or heard.
Why is it что-то instead of что-нибудь?
You use что-то when referring to something that actually happened in reality, but the speaker just doesn't know or remember exactly what it was. He was muttering a specific something in the past. что-нибудь means anything at all and is typically reserved for questions, requests, or future hypotheticals.
Why is the pronoun он placed after the first то ли, but not repeated after the second?
The conjunction то ли ..., то ли ... frames the two alternative actions (бормотал and пел). The subject он is placed after the first part to establish who is doing the action, and its meaning naturally carries over to the second verb. Repeating it as то ли он пел is not strictly wrong, but it sounds clunky and redundant.
Are both бормотал and пел imperfective, and if so, why?
Yes, both are imperfective past tense verbs. They are used here because the speaker is recalling the continuous process of the person making noise. The focus is on the ongoing, unstructured nature of his actions in the background of the memory, rather than single, completed events.
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