Subject and default form
The nominative most often marks the syntactic subject, but word order alone does not identify it.
- In Студе́нт чита́ет, студе́нт is the subject and appears in the nominative. In Кни́га лежи́т зде́сь, кни́га is the subject. Russian can move constituents for information structure, so an early noun is not automatically the subject.
| Sentence | Nominative subject | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Студе́нт чита́ет. | студе́нт | the student performs the action |
| Кни́га лежи́т зде́сь. | кни́га | the book has the described location |
| На столе́ лежи́т кни́га. | кни́га | case, not first position, identifies the subject |
Mini-check
1. Find the subject: На стене́ виси́т ка́рта. 2. Why is на стене́ not the subject?
Apply this next
- Retrieve the rule without looking, then continue to the next lesson.