Still working on those participles

[david-us.livejournal.com]

I just ran across these two sentences in my text (still working on those participles):

Я увидел его отдыхающим на пляже.

Я увидел Олега, отдыхающего на пляже.

The use of the instrumental in the first sentence is a mystery to me. The second sentence makes perfect sense. With regards to the first sentence, the text has the following note, "... after a direct object pronoun, the participle is placed in the instrumental case and is not separated from the pronoun by a comma in writing." Is this accurate?

I think I'm going to try and steer clear of these participles when able. It's useful to know/recognize them when reading, however. Just for my own edification - would the following sentence be grammatically correct?

Я увидел Олега, которого отдыхал на пляже.

(ref: Modern Russian II, p.875, but I have the 1965 edition.)

Comments

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

The verb "отдыха́ть" is intransitive. You cannot "отдыхать что-то". Your sentence, when corrected, should read: "У́тром я обы́чно встаю́ и пробега́ю де́сять киломе́тров, пото́м я даю́ отдохну́ть своим нога́м (let [my] feet rest).

About "бе́гаю" vs "бегу́" (not "вегу"): I would use "бегаю" if it's modified by time rather than distance ("встаю и полчаса бегаю"); with distance, the perfective "пробега́ю" seems more appropriate. Can't tell you why; it just sounds better.

Another stylistic comment: Russian uses pronouns much more sparingly than English, so you can safely get rid of the likes of "я" and "свои" in the second clause. That would improve its style.

[david-us.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! Are you a language instructor?

"вегу" was just a typo, I meant "бегу".

Also, I really like your versatile and comprehensive Cyrillic font with the accent marks and other features. We learners like those accent marks. At first they serve as a crutch, but later, when they disappear, we often find ourselves subconsciously saying the word correctly because those accent marks have trained our tongue.

I find the phrase "... даю отдохнуть ногам" interesting. There is no object for the verb давать. It's almost as if отдохнуть serves as a direct object, of sorts.

Also, my intended meaning was "... to give my LEGS a rest." Don't Russians make a distinction between "legs" and "feet"? Also, I've always found it curious that, to a Russian, a "палец" can be on the hand or the foot. It could give the phrase "After eating, he always licks his fingers" a very interesting meaning. How would you say that?

У нее красивые, длинные ноги.
She has beautiful, long FEET? :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>She has beautiful, long FEET? :)

Ноги in Russian is both legs and feet, you see. There is a specific word for feet, though (ступни), but it sounds a bit too anatomical (I have no idea how to render the idea of "too anatomical" to a native speaker of American English where nothing is seemingly too anatomical.) Speaking about giving your lower extremeties a rest, a Russian would most certainly suppose you're taking care for your feet rather than legs, though.

>a "палец" can be on the hand or the foot. It could give the phrase "After eating, he always licks his fingers" a very interesting meaning. How would you say that?

Context rules. Nobody would suppose you're licking your toes after a meal, even if we would employ the same word for fingers and toes. Speaking about toes, a Russian would most certainly specify that he was speaking about пальцы ног, though.

[david-us.livejournal.com]

> Speaking about toes, a Russian would most certainly specify that he was speaking about пальцы ног, though.

Oh no! Now he's got fingers on his leg! :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Again, ноги are both legs and feet (and руки are both arms and hands, by the way.)

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

You are quite welcome. I am not an instructor, although I did work as a Russian teaching assistant in college (they simply wanted a native speaker).

The script with stresses is an HTML trick: put ́ after any character, and that character will appear accented.