Thread: What does this sentence mean ?

Дверь общежития закрыта. Door what ? Where is the verb ?

The door of the dormitory is closed!

Do you see a verb in the english? Nope!

EDIT well ok : is. But in Russian that falls away!

the verb is закрыта. Granted, it is a short form past passive participle, but still a verb; the infinitive is закрыть 'close'.

Originally Posted by chaika

the verb is закрыта. Granted, it is a short form past passive participle, but still a verb; the infinitive is закрыть 'close'.

закрыта is not a verb , it's a past participle, the door is closed, is gets dropped in the present in Russian, like in - она очень добрая - she IS very kind, again no is in Russian(count the words) and добрая isn't a verb but an adjacetive.

igorfa, добрый is an adjective, not a verb. закрыт is the past participial form of a verb (masc. past passive participlial form of закрыть). Used as in the example, the ppp translates as "is/was + verb". Магазин закрыт. Think about она добрая - она была закрыта. I'm not sure about this but does it make sense to you?

Igorfa is perfectly correct, a participle is not a verb, it's an adjective. It's derived from a verb, but linguistically and grammatically it's an adjective.

The verb in this sentence is "to be" in both English and Russian, except in Russian "to be" always gets dropped in the present tense.