Thread: это была ничья... разве?

'It was a draw' in English (ie the match was a draw) seems to translate as 'это была ничья' according to reverso context website. This is really odd. Why это and then была? Why not был? Is this just a typo? Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks,

Richard

Когда говорят просто "ничья", тогда это существительное. И обычно разговор идёт либо об игре, победе/борьбе (like in marshal art). Игра, победа/борьба - существительные женского рода.
Как-то логично, что и "ничья" женского рода.

https://m.translate.ru/Grammar/ru-en...87%D1%8C%D1%8F

Thanks, Lampada.

So, this is like saying 'ничья была это', ie 'draw (nominative) was it (accusative.)' Is that right?
Or are you saying that была is used because most things that are capable of ending in a draw are feminine, so somehow all of them are treated as feminine in this expression?

Not sure I really understand yet.

Не знаю, как ответить.

Да, там была ничья.
Они сыграли вничью.

Ничья - существительное (noun), образовалось от местоимения.

вничью - наречие (adverb).

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZYrRWE1wSR3nDL819

Okay, I think we are not understanding each other here somehow.

'это была ничья'... In this sentence, ничья is nominative, yes?
That was part of what I was asking, although I can see now the answer must be yes...

I think maybe I need to leave this alone and come back to it, I'm probably just missing something thats so simple I just can't communicate it. Thanks Lampada, maybe I'm just a bit tired!

It has actually given me a good pause when I tried to put the sentence apart into grammatical pieces. Like at first it looked like there were 2 subjects in the sentence, which were это and ничья. But it's kind of nonsense if we talk grammar, right? So I think это must be an object actually. At least if you put it into another sentence that has a more obvious object like "Я вижу это", это stays exactly это. But if you put ничья in there, it'll change - "Я вижу ничью." So yeah, grammatically:

Это была ничья. Это - an object, была - predicate, ничья - subject. And since our subject is feminine its predicate has to be feminine as well, where there's such distinction of course and here, with a past tense verb and all, there's such a distinction.

Thank you iCake

That was what I was thinking, it's good to know that a native speaker sees it that way too. I think I confused everybody yesterday, not just Lampada, but other people oline and in person. Some days I just don't make much sense it seems!

Unless someone else says they disagree, I'll consider your explanation to be sufficient.

That’s a really tricky question!

First, there’s no accusative here. The verb быть is special, it cannot have a direct object. Its arguments are either both in nominative, or one in nominative and the other in instrumental.
Моя́ ня́ня (nom) была́ францу́женка (nom).
Моя́ ня́ня (nom) была́ францу́женкой (inst).
Мое́й ня́ней (inst) была́ францу́женка (nom).
Accusative forms (мою́ ня́ню or францу́женку) are impossible here.

The verb был/была́/бы́ло agrees in gender with the argument in nominative. When both arguments are in nominative, it theoretically can agree with either of them:
гла́вный приз был маши́на ~ гла́вный приз была́ маши́на
But these forms are generally rare—when a variant with instrumental can be used, it is preferable:
гла́вным при́зом была́ маши́на.

«Э́то был[а́/о] …» is a special case where the instrumental is impossible.
In this particular case, when the other argument is a noun, the verb agrees in gender with that noun, not with это. When the other argument is not a noun, the neuter gender is used (Э́то бы́ло хорошо́.)

Thanks Soft sign. So it's not a simple nominative-predicate-accusative situation. Got it. It's quite a quirky bit of grammar, but what you said makes sense.

Originally Posted by Soft sign

That’s a really tricky question!

First, there’s no accusative here. The verb быть is special, it cannot have a direct object. Its arguments are either both in nominative, or one in nominative and the other in instrumental.
Моя́ ня́ня (nom) была́ францу́женка (nom).
Моя́ ня́ня (nom) была́ францу́женкой (inst).
Мое́й ня́ней (inst) была́ францу́женка (nom).
Accusative forms (мою́ ня́ню or францу́женку) are impossible here.

The verb был/была́/бы́ло agrees in gender with the argument in nominative. When both arguments are in nominative, it theoretically can agree with either of them:
гла́вный приз был маши́на ~ гла́вный приз была́ маши́на
But these forms are generally rare—when a variant with instrumental can be used, it is preferable:
гла́вным при́зом была́ маши́на.

«Э́то был[а́/о] …» is a special case where the instrumental is impossible.
In this particular case, when the other argument is a noun, the verb agrees in gender with that noun, not with это. When the other argument is not a noun, the neuter gender is used (Э́то бы́ло хорошо́.)

Yeah, that's the answer there! And I think it explains why my first instinct was to take both это and ничья as subjects of the sentence. Great post, Soft Sign!