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Thread: case question

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    Завсегдатай sperk's Avatar
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    case question

    hi,
    can you tell me why причиной is in the genitive?

    thanks

    В большинстве случаев, причиной приостановления деятельности компаний становилось нарушение норм безопасности полётов.
    Кому - нары, кому - Канары.

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    Re: case question

    Quote Originally Posted by sperk
    hi,
    can you tell me why причиной is in the genitive?

    thanks

    В большинстве случаев, причиной приостановления деятельности компаний становилось нарушение норм безопасности полётов.
    "причиной" is not genitive but instrumental case. Genitive will be "причины".
    Could you please occasionally correct my stupid errors!
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    Завсегдатай sperk's Avatar
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    Re: case question

    Quote Originally Posted by Guin

    "причиной" is not genitive but instrumental case. Genitive will be "причины".
    well, why is it in the instrumental? I don't see why it shouldn't be in the nomitive.

    thanks
    Кому - нары, кому - Канары.

  4. #4
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    "Становиться" ("стать") always requires an instrumental case.
    In Russian, all nationalities and their corresponding languages start with a lower-case letter.

  5. #5
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    Right, without that verb it would be in the nominative but you should add the word "это"

    В большинстве случаев, причина приостановления деятельности компаний -- это нарушение норм безопасности полётов.
    ~ Мастерадминов Мастерадмин Мастерадминович ~

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    It came to my mind that a separate Russian sentence or a part of a complex semtence doesn't stand 2 nominatives in them. When the verb is omitted (Я студент) it's OK, but when it is full sentence and the verb is present (so called complex predicate, V + Noun/adj) the second noun tends to be in the instrumental case.
    Я был студентом.
    Я буду студентом.
    Я являюсь студентом.
    Я стану студентом. Я стал студентом.
    Постепенно я становился ленивым.

    Василий Ильич был хорошим человеком/хороший человек. Two variants possible, although the former sounds more common.

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    Re: case question

    The word order has confused you, as the sentence is inverted.

    Only the subject of a sentence or clause may be in the nominative case. Therefore to identify the subject one looks for the noun in the nominative case:

    In this sentence the main clause is everything after the comma:
    причиной приостановления деятельности компаний становилось нарушение норм безопасности полётов

    The noun in the nominative case is нарушение [neuter nominative].

    We can now re-arrange the sentence to 'normal' word oder. Note that норм безопасности полётов are all in the geninitive and belong to the subject нарушение.

    нарушение норм безопасности полётов становилось причиной приостановления деятельности компаний

    Note how the verb становилось [past tense neuter] agrees with its subject нарушение [neuter].

    The verb становилось is the past tense neuter form of the infinitive становиться / стать, and always requires the instrumental case.

    E.g. Он [nom] стал доктором [intrumental masculine] - He became a doctor.

    Нарушение [nom.] становилось причиной [instrumental feminine]
    Ingenting kan stoppa mig
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