Question 1

Why do we use собачьи here instead of the genitive собаки?

Accepted Answer

While you can say клыки собаки (fangs of a dog), Russian frequently uses possessive adjectives ending in -ий for animal traits, habitats, or body parts. Because клыки is plural, the possessive adjective takes the nominative plural form собачьи.

Question 2

Why is the plural spelled собачьи with a soft sign (ь) rather than a standard adjective ending like -ие?

Accepted Answer

Possessive adjectives ending in -ий (like собачий or медвежий) follow a special soft declension pattern. In all forms except the masculine nominative and inanimate accusative singular, the stem's final -ий drops and becomes a soft sign (ь) before the new ending. For the plural, the ending is -и, resulting in собачьи.

Question 3

Why is the word order собачьи ли это клыки rather than putting ли at the start of the clause?

Accepted Answer

In Russian, the interrogative particle ли (meaning "whether" or "if") always immediately follows the specific word being questioned. The speaker is unsure specifically if the fangs are from a dog, so собачьи is placed at the front of the subordinate clause and is followed directly by ли.

Question 4

Why does the sentence use the singular neuter это when referring to the plural noun клыки?

Accepted Answer

In this sentence, это functions as a fixed introductory pronoun meaning "these are" or "this is." When used to simply identify or introduce a noun, это remains invariant and does not agree in gender or number with the noun. You would only use the plural эти if it directly modified the noun as an adjective, as in эти собачьи клыки (these dog fangs).

Я не помню, собачьи ли это клыки.

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