# ещё в прошлом году



## Konstantinos

В. Путин: Сегодня, кстати говоря, начинаются запланированные ещё в прошлом году военные учения, которые должны продлиться несколько дней. Но это, собственно говоря, в известной степени для военных людей рутинное дело, оно связано с подготовкой войск. Повторю ещё раз, чтобы не было никаких спекуляций: это мероприятие, которое было запланировано и даже анонсировано ещё в прошлом году. После выполнения программы совместных учений российские подразделения вернутся к своим местам постоянной дислокации.

This is from a Vladimir Putin - Alexander Lukashenko speech (14 сентября 2020 года), kremlin.ru

What is the meaning of ещё в прошлом году? Even in last year?


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## pimlicodude

Konstantinos said:


> В. Путин: Сегодня, кстати говоря, начинаются запланированные ещё в прошлом году военные учения, которые должны продлиться несколько дней. Но это, собственно говоря, в известной степени для военных людей рутинное дело, оно связано с подготовкой войск. Повторю ещё раз, чтобы не было никаких спекуляций: это мероприятие, которое было запланировано и даже анонсировано ещё в прошлом году. После выполнения программы совместных учений российские подразделения вернутся к своим местам постоянной дислокации.
> 
> This is from a Vladimir Putin - Alexander Lukashenko speech (14 сентября 2020 года), kremlin.ru
> 
> What is the meaning of ещё в прошлом году? Even in last year?


ещё can refer back to a past period, eg "back last year", "as long ago as ten years ago", etc.


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## Rosett

It means literally “yet in the past year.”


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## Konstantinos

Thank you both for your answers. In the same context, году is partitive or locative?


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## pimlicodude

locative


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## Konstantinos

I'd appreciate if you give me an example of году in partitive.


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## Rosett

Konstantinos said:


> I'd appreciate if you give me an example of году in partitive.


Без году неделя, referring to a very young age, jokingly or disparagingly.


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## pimlicodude

Rosett said:


> Без году неделя, referring to a very young age, jokingly or disparagingly.


with the stress on без:
бе́з году неде́ля


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## pimlicodude

An example from context reverso: Но вы вместе _без году неделя_., you've only been together five minutes (a figurative five minutes, an English idiom).


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## pimlicodude

You can hear the phrase here: без году неделя pronunciation: How to pronounce без году неделя in Russian


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## nizzebro

Note that it is a rare set phrase, and in ordinary collocations you use го́да in the genitive (без/от одного года, пятый месяц года). Actually I see no much reason for the partitive variation in respect to the notion of "year", because is not something mass-like.


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## Rosett

pimlicodude said:


> An example from context reverso: Но вы вместе _без году неделя_., you've only been together five minutes (a figurative five minutes, an English idiom).


Без году неделя refers to an unspecified little age.


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## pimlicodude

Rosett said:


> Без году неделя refers to an unspecified little age.


Do you mean the age of a baby? малышу без году неделя?
The example I found on Context Reverso, is that also possible? Not all context reverso translations are right, I know.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> Note that it is a rare set phrase, and in ordinary collocations you use го́да in the genitive (без/от одного года, пятый месяц года). Actually I see no much reason for the partitive variation in respect to the notion of "year", because is not something mass-like.


I think you have to understand the Partitive as meaning "Genitive II, partitive *and* calcified usages". One of my favourites is о́т роду (ему 20 лет о́т роду), which also shows that there is nothing partitive about many of these "partitives".


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## Rosett

pimlicodude said:


> Do you mean the age of a baby? малышу без году неделя?
> The example I found on Context Reverso, is that also possible? Not all context reverso translations are right, I know.


We don’t say that about actual little boys. Only figurative meaning can be employed with regards to an age of any kind: the age of relationship, for example, они знакомы без году неделя = they barely know each other. And you can say it to a some young but pretentious immature fellow in a disparaging remark, as if: “Ты, сопляк, без году неделя, а уже всё попробовал!»


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> One of my favourites is о́т роду (ему 20 лет о́т роду), which also shows that there is nothing partitive about many of these "partitives".


Which  also is a separate adverbial that internally doesn't show the partitive semantics. I have no idea why it ends with "-у" - to me, this somehow complies with exactly the adverbial role, but it likely might be a relic of morphological development (I'm not an expert in that).

My point was generally only that the partitive is not a kind of grammatical case that is present permanently in a way that the matter is only whether it coincides with the genitive or not. If the semantics of a noun doesn't allow the idea of a mass, there is logically no partitive, and no reason to care much about it - even though in some phrases like those posted here, the noun can have the related form.


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> Which  also is a separate adverbial that internally doesn't show the partitive semantics. I have no idea why it ends with "-у" - to me, this somehow complies with exactly the adverbial role, but it likely might be a relic of morphological development (I'm not an expert in that).


I spent a long time trying to work that one out, and eventually I realised ему 70 лет от роду is written as two words, and я отроду не видал такого is one word (отроду: never in all my born days).


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> I spent a long time trying to work that one out, and eventually I realised ему 70 лет от роду is written as two words, and я отроду не видал такого is one word (отроду: never in all my born days).


Yes, this often happens - it's hard to me to formulate why, Maybe that _от роду_ looks more like a free collocation for some reason, e.g. because от was used more freely before, even though in contexts where it is used, we cannot replace "роду" with anything else. Or being governed by a numeral and not a verb could also be a factor.
There is also сроду, where it reads and sound absolutely as a single whole. 
In all these, род appears to mean the moment of birth and not "lineage" or "kind"  - why, I don't know.


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## Vovan

"От роду" (="от рождения") was initially spelled as two separate words; it was only later that there emerged the figurative "никогда в жизни", and still later that the spelling "отроду" specifically for it was established as a norm.





_(И.М. Муравьев-Апостол, "Ошибки, или Утро вечера мудренее: комедия в пяти действиях", 1794 г.)_


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## pimlicodude

Vovan said:


> "От роду" (="от рождения") was initially spelled as two separate words; it was only later that there emerged the figurative "никогда в жизни", and still later that the spelling "отроду" specifically for it was established as a norm.
> 
> View attachment 77480
> _(И.М. Муравьев-Апостол, "Ошибки, или Утро вечера мудренее: комедия в пяти действиях", 1794 г.)_


I don't like the font in that image with the outsized hard sign...


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