help!

[arden667.livejournal.com]

okay, we're supposed to be studying for our final exam in SLL 320 next friday.. i've gotten everything down i think i need to know, except our class has this general confusion over comparatives. so i have these five sentences i'm extremely stuck on... i'll give you the questions and directions, and my best guesses. can you guys tell me what i'm doing wrong? please?


Okay, the directions go as follows, which I dont find particularly clear.. then following are the sentences, in bold, and my sad answers in regular text.

"Rephrase sentences using the alternative comparative construction, wherever possible:"

1. Петя более хороший студент, чем Маша.
This one I dont think should be changed, but my best guess that if you were to change it, you'd only colapse the comparative, and keep "чем":
Петя лучше студент, чем Маша.

2. Этот золотой браслет дороже, чем тот серебряный.
This one I dont like because we're not changing the comparative at all.. I tried it earlier with a the full "более дорогий", but my teacher didn't like that.. so this is it instead having removed "чем" and making the rest genitive:
Этот золотой браслет дороже того серебряного.

3. Директор компании работает больше, чем директор ресторана.
I'm just not sure about my genitive here.. because we're putting the sentence in genitive, so "директор" gets his "a", but then he needs to modify "ресторан" so he possess it.. so can i have two (differently motivated) genitive constructions back-to-back?
Директор компании работает больше директора ресторана.

4. У этой женщины более светлые волосы, чем у той.
I remember being told you cant take the "чем" out of this sentence (like my first attempt), so I just changed comparative types. Does this work?
У этой женщины светлее волосы, чем у той.

5. Моя подруга старше, чем я.
My first instinct is to change nothing in this one as well.. but if I had to, this would be my best guess:
Моя подруга старше меня.


Any insight you can give me on these would be a huge help.. this was the last subject we covered this semester, and I think everyone in class left going "what the hell?".. we're having a study session Wednesday night.. so if I have these hammered out before then, I might be able to pass it on to everyone else. Thanks!

Comments

[edricson.livejournal.com]

>>Петя лучше студент, чем Маша.

That's almost OK. Mind, you need the adjective, not the adverb in this context, so it's лучший rather than лучше here.

>>Этот золотой браслет дороже того серебряного.

OK.

>>Директор компании работает больше директора ресторана.

OK.

>>У этой женщины светлее волосы, чем у той.

Almost OK. Since светлее is part of the predicate here, the word-order look a bit unnatural. So it's better to say

У этой женщины волосы светлее, чем у той.

>>Моя подруга старше меня.

OK.

Hope this helps!

[arden667.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was a speedy responce!

I get caught up in the literal inflectional grammar sometimes that I forget my basic grammar (adverb, adjective, etc.) .. i hadn't even thought of what part of speech my first sentence needed.

Thanks so much for the help :)

[yers.livejournal.com]

Петя лучший студент, чем Маша.
Директор компании работает больше директора ресторана.
- might be alright in an exercise, but in fact they're barely acceptable in terms of style, especially the first one. "Хороший студент" as such is a bit of an Anglicism; we tend to say "хорошо учится", to which the comparative is учится лучше [...Маши or ..., чем Маша].

Also, good Russian will avoid a double genitive whenever possible (and avoid a triple genitive at all costs), so the very possibility of "больше, чем директор ресторана" deprecates "больше директора ресторана". I repeat, we're talking style, not grammar which is alright with both.

[sekhet.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I would have interpreted the "alternative comparative construction" as meaning that your teacher wanted you to use the genitive case (родительный падеж) instead of чем. So it's not the first part of the sentence you'd be changing but the second: Моя подруга старше меня, as you had it.

I think the only point the teacher wants to make (even though as the other posters have commented, some of the examples are stylistically awkward) is that the genitive case serves the same purpose as чем + nominative. So the reason that you couldn't change the type in У этой женщины более светлые волосы, чем у той is that у той is a prepositional phrase and therefore obviously can't be declined.