The song lyric "Страхам дней минувших меня уж не догнать" translates to something like "The fears of days past don't reach me anymore". I understand why "дней минувших" is in the genitive, because they "own" the fears, I understand why "меня" is in the accusative, because it's the object that's (not) being "reached", but I have no idea why the "стра́хи" aren't in the nominative. After all, they're the ones performing the verb (догнать). Why are they instead in the dative case?
Asked
Active
Viewed 61 times
1
-
1A simple way taught to understand the case is to ask a question to the statement. Кому меня уж не догнать? - Страхам. It could be nominative - Страхи дней минувших меня уже не смогут догнать. Кто не сможет догнать? - Страхи. – Vilmar Sep 23 '15 at 14:21
-
@Vilmar My Russian isn't really strong enough to understand what you're saying. Are you implying there's a significant difference between Кому and кто? I also don't really see how the linked duplicate question answers this one. – Jack M Sep 23 '15 at 14:37
-
1@JackM In nominative case there would be: страхи меня не догонят. But here you have infinitive-based construction which must use dative case: страхам меня не догнать. The meaning is almost the same, but the syntax is quite different. And the duplicate question is really dedicated to such constructions. Try to read it carefully. – Matt Sep 23 '15 at 14:56
-
@Vilmar: I believe the op was able to understand the case (it's in the title after all), it's just they don't understand why was this particular case used. – Quassnoi Sep 23 '15 at 15:04