Breakdown of Я не видел ни одного нового фильма Мерил Стрип.
не
not
я
I
новый
new
фильм
movie
видеть
to see
один
one
ни
not (negative particle in ни с кем, ни о чём)
Мерил
Meryl
Стрип
Streep
Questions & Answers about Я не видел ни одного нового фильма Мерил Стрип.
Why is Мерил Стрип not in the genitive case like the rest of the object phrase?
Because foreign female names and surnames that end in a consonant do not decline in Russian. They stay exactly the same in all cases. By contrast, a Russian female name or surname ending in -а or -я would decline.
What if the actor was male, like Brad Pitt (Брэд Питт)? Would his name decline?
Yes! Foreign male names and surnames ending in a consonant do decline as standard masculine nouns. If this sentence were about him, both his first and last name would take the genitive endings: ни одного нового фильма Брэда Питта.
Why do we use the genitive case for ни одного нового фильма instead of the accusative?
The emphatic phrase ни один (not a single) in a negative sentence always forces the following noun and adjectives into the genitive case. Furthermore, direct objects of negated verbs like не видел frequently take the genitive case anyway to emphasize the total absence of the object.
How does the Russian structure show that it's a film by her, rather than a film about her?
Placing the creator's name in the genitive case immediately after the creation (фильма Мерил Стрип) indicates possession or authorship, translating to "a film by" in English. If you wanted to say "a film about Meryl Streep," you would use the preposition о plus the prepositional case: фильма о Мерил Стрип (which happens to look identical here only because her name is indeclinable).
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