When one should chooser "чьи это книги?" and when "чьи эти книги?". Or are these forms completely interchangeable?
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There's a whole set of related questions on this site. Have a look at this one with my detailed answer: What is the difference in meaning between “Это моя машина” and “Эта моя машина”?.– Yellow SkyCommented Oct 17, 2016 at 12:36
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and another one russian.stackexchange.com/questions/13068/…– Баян Купи-каCommented Oct 18, 2016 at 19:19
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Exactly why you are saying "It was they who made it possible" (maybe not literally, but your example and mine are close)– dimanneCommented Jul 24, 2019 at 20:21
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2 Answers
Will it make sense to you if I say, "because это is a picture-frame rather than a tag"? In other words, это refers to the abstract, uncountable "stuff we're looking at", rather than to be a marker attached to the books themselves, as in the English "Whose books are these?". You can ask Чьи эти книги?, but it will sound weirdly "off", at least if you were pointing to the actual books. The variant with эти can (at least in some cases) sound natural when what you're asking is "whose are these books?" rather than "whose books are these?" – i.e. when "these" is a contextual reference rather than a literal indication. But even there, I must say, I can't quite come up with satisfactory everyday examples. The abstract, independent, generalising это is just so much more common.
answered Oct 16, 2016 at 23:28
In such cases people say "it's just as it is". Note:we use a declined form of this determiner«Эта книга чья? Эти книги чьи?» only before the noun in emphatic sentences.Used in post- position the pronoun is not declined and the sentence sounds more neutral. Though we can't deny grammaticality of a declined pronoun used in postposition, we don't use it as a rule.
