Instrumental and Genitive in “Она была озабочена отъездом матери”

Asked by Kerim on August 5, 2019

Question

Hello everyone ; '' она была озабочена отъездом матери '' why ''отъездом'' here is in the instrumental form whereas ''матери'' in the genitive? Sometimes I come across two different forms completing each other. Why is that also? Thank you very much ...

Answer

Hi Kerim,

Russian verbs, adjectives, participles and nouns can be used with different cases. The short participle озабочен (озабочена, озабочены) are always used with nouns and adjectives Instrumental case. 

For example,

Отец был озабочен результатами экзаменов. Father was worried about the results of the exam.

Матери is the Genitive case because your phrase can be translated (literally) as "She was worried about leaving of her mother". All the expressions used with the preposition "of" in the English language in the sense of possession are used with the Genitive case in Russian.

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