Editorial check: four grammatical errors among six news items
An editor receives six one-line news items: (1) «Согласно приказа директора, занятия переносятся»; (2) «По окончанию школы он поступил в университет»; (3) «В буфете продавали вкусное кофе»; (4) «На встречу пришли трое девушек»; (5) «Он был болен гриппом и остался дома»; (6) «Заведующий кафедрой подписал письмо». The editor marks exactly four items as grammatically erroneous. The author asks for a rule-based explanation, not a list of exceptions. The editor must also explain why the two remaining items are correct, even though they contain forms that look unusual to the author.
1. Identify the four erroneous items, correct them, and justify each with a grammatical rule.
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Errors are (1)-(4):
- Согласно приказу - the preposition согласно in the literary norm governs the dative case, not the genitive.
- По окончании школы - the preposition по in the meaning «after» governs the prepositional case; по окончанию is a common but nonnormative variant.
- Вкусный кофе - кофе is an indeclinable masculine noun, so the adjective agrees in masculine gender: вкусный кофе, not вкусное.
- Три девушки - collective numerals such as трое do not combine in the literary norm with feminine nouns denoting persons; use три девушки.
Items (5) and (6) are correct: болен гриппом uses the instrumental case with болеть, and заведующий кафедрой uses the instrumental case with заведующий.
2. For one correct item, explain why the tempting alternative would be wrong; for one corrected item, explain why the apparent «logic» fails.
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For (5), the tempting form болен гриппа is wrong because болеть in this meaning governs the instrumental case: болеть гриппом, болеть ангиной. The genitive would fit a different verb, for example страдать от гриппа, so the case is selected by the verb, not by the meaning alone.
For (1), the apparent logic is that приказ is the source, so the genitive «приказа» seems natural. But the preposition согласно in modern literary usage governs the dative: согласно приказу, согласно расписанию. The genitive variant is archaic or colloquial, so the editor should correct it despite the semantic plausibility of the genitive.