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Потому что местоимение whose выполняет ту же грамматическую функцию, что и притяжательные местоимения (her, his, its, their), с которыми артикль не употребляется.
Лингвистически говоря, 'whose' is a determiner. Т.к. у 'apple' уже есть determiner, то добавлять другой determiner (артикль) не надо.
Я́блоко is the nominative case, used for the subject of the sentence:
- Я́блоко большо́е. 'The apple is big.'
- Я́блоко на столе́. 'The apple is on the table.'
- Я́блоко моё. 'The apple is mine.'
Я́блока is the genitive case, used to express absence with «нет», or to express the meaning 'of', or in some other situations:
- На столе́ нет я́блока. 'There is no apple on the table.' (нет + Genitive case form expresses absence)
- цвет я́блока 'colour of [the] apple'
In the sentence Whose apple is on the table?, "whose apple" is a subject, "is" is a verb (in Russian it's omited), "on the table" is an adverbial modifier. Since "чьё я́блоко" is the subject, we use the nominative case form.
So, if яблоко is masculine (and used here in the nominative case), why not use чей in this sentence?
Яблоко is neuter.
If it were masculine, you'd use чей, indeed.
Then why not use чья if the T&N chart lists чей, чьё, чья ,чьи for masculine, feminine, neuter, plural - ?
Чья is feminine, and чьё is neuter. If Tips and Notes says чья is neuter, it's a mistake.
These words follow general patterns: most feminine nouns end in -а/-я/-ь in nominative, and чья ends in -я in nominative. Most neuter nouns end in -о/-е/-ё, and чьё ends in -ё.
That's what I would have thought, so apparently the chart lists them out of order. Can someone fix this?
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It means the same, but exact translation of what you wrote would аdd это: чьё это яблоко на столе It would be nice if a native Russian speaker could confirm this.
