Just curious.

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

I was just reading a sentence in my textbook that struck me as odd.

"Да нет, что ты, у него не растяжение!"

It's a statement by a woman about her friend who is currently in the hospital. Conceptually I know what it means, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the best way to translate it into English. Could someone help?

Also, is "у него не растяжение" a grammatically acceptable construction? I don't recall ever having seen не + the nominative (or possibly accusative) case of a noun. Could it be a typo of "нет растяжения"?


Edit: Thanks for the help, guys!

Comments

[alamar.livejournal.com]

Растяжение is a diagnosis, so it's perfectly acceptable to say "у него нет растяжения".

As for the actual term you have to ask medics :)

[bryska.livejournal.com]

This is a very common construction. The trick is, "не растяжение" here is the predicate; "это не растяжение" = "это не есть растяжение", ie "растяжение" is a part of the compound predicate "есть+noun", in which "есть" is always omitted.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

No, it's not a typo, it's just ellypsis. In fact, this is a so called "complex noun predicate", where predicate is constructed by the model ["есть/не есть" + noun]. The trick is that link verb "есть", supposed to be used in such constructions, is almost universally omitted in modern Russian, so in not for this custom, the phrase would've been looking like "у него не есть растяжение", which is pretty similar, in fact, to English "his isn't the strain".

[viata.livejournal.com]

When you say "у него нет растяжения" it means that he is OK.
When it is "у него не растяжение" it has a connotation of "у него не растяжение, а что-то другое".
Well, anyway both variants are correct and there're no strict recommendation on using them. I'd call them synonims.

[anyher.livejournal.com]

You not qute right about "у него не растяжение, а что-то другое". "у него не растяжение" is jut short (and bit unclean) construction. If this says russian native speaker both means the same. Meaning is more depend on question in this case.

[tushan.livejournal.com]

well, if someone told me that У него не растяжение!, it is sure he/she wants to emphasize that, although I (presumably, maybe) think that he has a strain, that's not the case. It's rather aggressive-sounding construction

I'm Russian, btw

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is correct. Almost with all illnesses/diagnoses can you use this kind of construction: "у меня не насморк" (I don't have a cold [maybe it's cholera]), "у него не СПИД" (he has no AIDS [but he sure got something worse]), etc. However, the all-famous phrase about "ну почему у меня нет воды в колене?" (Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee?) uses your kind of construction, so don't blame the writer, but feel at ease to choose whatever you like yourself.

That is, if no native Russian corrects you ;)

[anyher.livejournal.com]

As says justo123 it's not really god rusian. At least "Да нет," is a garbage. But i understand it.

Я даже не удивлюсь, если какая-нибудь тетя Клава так и скажет.

[oryx_and_crake]

1. Please keep in mind that the working language of this community is English.

2. Please do not make misleading comments. "Да нет, у него не растяжение" is a perfectly good Russian phrase, though a colloquial one. If you cannot tell incorrect from colloquial, it is probably better that you don't post here, so you don't mislead the language learners.

[anyher.livejournal.com]

Reply to (2). You will not hear such phrase building in "Vremya" or, in scool from teacher, whatever. It is acceptable, but not a good practice.

[oryx_and_crake]

Once again - it is a perfectly good phrase for everyday speech. I agree that it would sound out of place, say, in an official document. A conversational style of speech is different from a business or official style, however both are perfectly legitimate in their proper context.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Do you understand the meaning of "colloquial" at all? It means that it is perfectly fine to use it in the news, or in school, or whereever else you might find yourself speaking (i.e., not writing it down). You can even encounter it in a book, where the author is trying to emulate the spoken language (Boris Pasternak is one of those writers who are partucularly good in it).

As a reply to your other comment above, justo123 does NOT say it is incorrect ("god rusian" in your way of spelling).

If you keep this conversation up, we will have to rename the community from learn_russian to teach_a_russian_guy_to_speak_english ;))

[justso123.livejournal.com]

As a native Russian, I've heard things like this many times, i.e. this construction is absolutely acceptable and quite commonly used. Not sure if an overcautios editor would replace it with "нет растяжения" or not though:).