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Каждый… по…
Sometimes the Russian word каждый ‘every’ has an interesting interaction with the preposition по + dative singular. In effect, the по means ‘apiece’ or ‘each’. We call this the ‘distributive’ meaning of по:
| Учительница дала каждому ученику по учебнику. | The teacher gave each student one textbook. |
| Каждому солдату было выдано по автомату. | Each solder was issued one machine gun. |
Of course, in those contexts the каждый is redundant, so the sentence can be said the same way without it, in which case the people to whom things are given will most likely be expressed in the plural:
| Учительница дала ученикам по учебнику. | The teacher gave her students one textbook apiece. |
| Солдатам было выдано по автомату. | The soldiers were issued one machine gun each. |
Oddly enough, if the number of things issued to the recipients is more than one, then the number phrase is accusative instead of dative:
| Учительница дала ученикам по два учебника. | The teacher gave her students one textbook apiece. |
| Солдатам было выдано по три автомата. | The soldiers were issued three machine guns each. |
| Управление ЦРУ выдало своим шпинонам по пять ноутбуков. | The CIA's administration issued its spies five laptops apiece. |
1 comment
Comment from: Andrey [Visitor] · http://chinafilm.tv/
You can use this to make puns :) For example, "Каждый получит по чайнику".
05/20/10 @ 00:40
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