Word
В коробке осталась дюжина бракованных деталей.
Meaning
A dozen defective parts remained in the box.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of В коробке осталась дюжина бракованных деталей.
в
in / to (direction)
остаться
to stay
коробка
box (cardboard)
деталь
detail
Questions & Answers about В коробке осталась дюжина бракованных деталей.
Why does the verb осталась take the feminine singular form instead of being plural for multiple parts?
The grammatical subject here is дюжина (a dozen), which is a feminine singular noun. While standard numbers can sometimes take a plural verb, numerical nouns like дюжина, сотня (a hundred), and десяток (a group of ten) strictly control the verb's gender and number.
Why is бракованных деталей in the genitive plural?
Because дюжина is grammatically a standard noun, not a true numeral. Just as you use the genitive case to say a box OF parts (коробка деталей), you use the genitive plural after numerical grouping nouns to express a quantity of items.
Is the word бракованных related to брак (marriage)?
They share the exact same root spelling, but they are homonyms. Russian has two words for брак: one means marriage (native Slavic) and the other means manufacturing defect or flaw (borrowed from German). Here, the adjective бракованный comes from the second meaning, translating to defective.
Why does the verb осталась come before the subject дюжина?
Russian word order typically places the newest or most important information at the very end of the sentence. By starting with В коробке осталась, the sentence sets the scene first, building up to the main reveal of exactly what was left behind.