Explain the structure of the following sentence
(Видно, сильнейший радиационный фон способствовал) гибели разлагающих органику микроорганизмов, (поэтому физическое тело не разлагалось, а превращалось в мумию).
I understand what's between brackets but not the rest, especially not the cases used in the sentence: разлагающих is plural genitive, органику singular accusative, and микроорганизмов is plural genitive again if I'm correct: I don't see the logic.
Thanks.
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Answers · 3
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(Видно, сильнейший радиационный фон способствовал) гибели разлагающих органику микроорганизмов, (поэтому физическое тело не разлагалось, а превращалось в мумию).
There are three main structures:
фон способствовал гибели - enabled / promoted destruction
(фон - a subject, способствовал - a predicate, гибели - an object, which depicts a consequence of radiation background)
гибели микроорганизмов - bacterial desctuction, desctruction of bacterias / microorganisms
микроорганизмов, разлагающих органику - bacterias / microorganisms which decompose organic matters (this is a present participle, pertaining to the noun "микроорганизмов")
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The problem is in a participial clauseб where a main word is placed in its end. Russian language allows to place the object both before the participial clause (in this case the clause is embraced by commas) and after — like in this case, — and if it's at the end, there are no commas. Semantically both variants are equivalent:
"микроорганизмов, разлагающих органику, ..." = "разлагающих органику микроорганизмов"
The second case is much more difficult to read and understand.
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