ALL German Grammar

6/21/2014 German grammar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar 1/14

German grammarFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German grammar is the grammar of the German language. Although some features of German grammar, such asthe formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of English inthat it has, among other things, cases and gender in nouns and a strict verb-second word order in main clauses.

German has retained many of the grammatical distinctions that other Germanic languages have lost in whole or inpart. There are three genders and four cases, and verbs are conjugated for person and number. Accordingly,German has more inflections than English, and uses more suffixes. For example, in comparison to the -s added tothird-person singular present-tense verbs in English, most German verbs employ four different suffixes for theconjugation of present-tense verbs, namely -e for the first-person singular, -st for the second-person singular, -t forthe third-person singular and for the second-person plural, and -en for the first- and third-person plural.

Owing to the gender and case distinctions, the articles have more possible forms. In addition, some prepositionscombine with some of the articles.

Numerals are similar to other Germanic languages. Unlike modern English, units are placed before tens as in Dutch.

Contents

1 Nouns

1.1 Genders

1.2 Cases

1.2.1 General

1.2.2 Genitive

1.2.3 Dative

1.2.4 Cases after prepositions

1.3 Prepositions and cases

1.4 Declension of adjectives

1.5 Plurals

2 Nominal (or noun) phrases

2.1 Genitive attribute

2.2 Position

2.3 Extended attribute phrase

2.4 Relative clause

3 Articles and article-like words

4 Cardinal numbers

5 Adjectives

6 Pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_person

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffixes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language



6.1 Personal pronouns

7 Adverbial phrases

8 Verbs

8.1 Verbs in sentence structure

8.2 Separable verbs

9 Modal particles

10 Sentences

11 References

11.1 Notes

11.2 Bibliography

12 External links

Nouns

A German noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). Nouns are declined forcase and grammatical number. In German, all nouns are capitalized, not just proper nouns.

Genders

German has all three genders of late Proto-Indo-European—the masculine, the feminine, and the neuter. EveryGerman noun takes one of these genders. The grammatical gender of a German noun does not necessarilycorrespond with the real-life object's sex (or lack thereof). Nouns denoting a person, such as die Frau ("woman")or der Mann ("man"), generally agree with the natural gender of what is described. However, since every Germannoun ending with -chen or -lein is grammatically neuter, there exist several notable counterexamples such as dasMädchen ("girl") and das Fräulein ("miss"). Thus these are not illogical, whereas das Weib (old, regional oranthropological: woman; a cognate of the English "wife") is really an exception. In addition, German assigns genderto nouns without natural gender, in an arbitrary fashion. For example, the three common pieces of cutlery all havedifferent genders: das Messer ("knife") is neuter, die Gabel ("fork") is feminine, and der Löffel ("spoon") ismasculine.

Students of German are often advised to learn German nouns with their accompanying definite article, as the definitearticle of a German noun corresponds to the gender of the noun. However, the meaning or form, especially the

ending, of a noun can be used to recognize 80% of noun genders.[1] For instance, nouns ending in the suffixes -heit,

-keit, -ung, -tät, or -schaft are always feminine.[2] As noted above, nouns ending in -chen or -lein take the neuter.A noun ending in –e is likely to be feminine; however, this is not a universal rule: die Katze ("cat"), die Blume("flower"), and die Liebe ("love") are feminine, but der Bote ("messenger") and der Junge ("boy") and der Knabe("knave") are masculine, while das Ende ("end") is neuter. Similarly, a noun ending in –er is likely to be masculine(der Teller, der Stecker, der Computer); however, das Messer ("knife") and das Wasser ("water") are neuter,whereas die Mutter ("mother") and die Butter ("butter") are feminine in High German.

Cases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages



General

Unlike English, which has lost almost all forms of declension of nouns and adjectives, German inflects nouns,adjectives and pronouns into four grammatical cases. The cases are the nominative (Nominativ/Werfall), genitive(Genitiv/Wesfall), dative (Dativ/Wemfall), and accusative (Akkusativ/Wenfall). The case of a particular noundepends on the grammatical function of the noun in the sentence.

Nominative (Wer oder was?): The subject of a sentence, the thing doing the action

He loves her.

Accusative (Wen oder was?): The direct object, the thing which is directly receiving the action, or the object

of certain prepositions

He loves her.

Genitive (Wessen?): The possessor of something, or the object of certain prepositions; in English "Whose?"

This is Susanna's book.

Dative (Wem?): The indirect object, as in when an object is given to someone, or the object of certain

prepositions and verbs

I gave the book to her.

Example: der Tisch (masc.)(engl. the table)

Singular: Plural:

Nom: der Tisch die Tische

Acc: den Tisch die Tische

Gen: des Tisch(e)s der Tische

Dat: dem Tisch(e) den Tischen

In a sentence (using only one noun for understanding purposes):

Der Tisch gab dem Tisch(e) des Tisch(e)s den Tisch

The table gave (to) the table of the table the table.

This sentence is an example of how cases are used in German (and in every other language with grammatical

case). This differs from English, where the word order in a sentence has more meaning. In German, because

the function of each noun is not marked by its position within the sentence but by the declined articles — and

in case of genitive and dative also by a suffix at the end of the noun itself — the German sentence could also

be:

Der Tisch gab dem Tisch(e) den Tisch des Tisch(e)s.

Der Tisch gab des Tisch(e)s Tisch dem Tisch(e)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_case



Den Tisch des Tisches gab dem Tisch der Tisch.

Dem Tisch(e) gab den Tisch des Tisch(e)s der Tisch.

Des Tisch(e)s Tisch gab dem Tisch(e) den Tisch.

etc.

Although some of these may sound exotic in modern day German, they are grammatically correct (and even

rather unusual constructions are more regularly used in poetry).

Contrary to strongly inflected languages like Latin, German expresses cases more through the word's article thanthe ending of the word, though especially the difference between plural and singular is also expressed by suffixes onthe words' endings (der Tisch, die Tische). Other exceptions of a suffix expressing the case of a noun along with thearticle are the forms of genitive singular and dative plural. Yet, one could still say that transferring the case-information to the article preserved the German case system throughout its development from Old High German tocontemporary German.

Genitive

Today, the use of the genitive case is rare in spoken language - speakers often substitute the dative case for pastuses of it in conversation, quite similar to the language's Germanic relative Faroese. But the genitive case remainsalmost obligatory in written communication, public speeches and anything that is not explicitly colloquial in Germanand is still an important part of German Bildungssprache (language of education). Television programmes andmovies often contain a mixing of both, dative substitution or regular genitive, depending on how formal or "artistic"the program is intended to be. The use of the dative substitution is more common in southern German dialects,whereas Germans from northern regions (where Luther's Bible-German had to be learned like a foreign languageback then) use the genitive more regularly. Though it has become quite common not to use the genitive case when itwould formally be required, great numbers of Germans know how to use it and generally do so. Especially amongpeople of higher education, it is considered a minor embarrassment to be caught using the dative case incorrectly.Therefore, it is by no means recommended to avoid the genitive when learning German, since the decline of thiscase, which has been going on for about 600 years, is proceeding very slowly, because the historical developmentof German Standardsprache has reestablished this particular case in German language to some extent, and notnecessarily just in written form. For example, the genitive is rarely used in colloquial German to express apossessive relation (e.g. das Auto meines Vaters "my father's car" is likely to sound odd in colloquial speech), butthe partitive genitive is rather common today (e.g. einer der Besten "one of the best").

Yet, a German book called Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod ("The dative is to the genitive its death") alludesto this phenomenon (being called "genitive's death struggle" by the author) in its title. In correct standard German,the title would be "Der Dativ ist des Genitiv[e]s Tod" ("Dative is Genitive's Death"). In alternative word order also"Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genitivs". As is apparent, the book uses a dialect way of speaking, i.e. by employing thedative case together with a possessive pronoun instead of the genitive, to poke fun at what the author perceives as adecline in the German language, since in written German a dative construction replacing the genitive is stillconsidered a major error. This is, by the way, not how most Standard German speakers would colloquially replacethe genitive case; rather, this usage is prevalent in some German regional dialects, such as Bavarian. StandardGerman speakers would construct Der Dativ ist der Tod vom Genitiv, which is (being literally the English "of theGenitive") incorrect in the Standard as well, but far less incriminated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroese_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Dativ_ist_dem_Genitiv_sein_Tod

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_language



Linguistically, the thesis of the genitive case dying out can easily be refuted. Indeed, the genitive case has beenwidely out of use in all dialects of the German language for centuries. The new phenomenon is only the replacementof dialects by a colloquial Standard German, which does not at all, however, affect the use of the genitive case inthe written language. Also, many Germans wrongly use the genitive after prepositions including nahe, gemäß orentgegen, although the dative is required.

There are, however, legitimate dative constructions to indicate possession, as in "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch zueigen". The construction "zu eigen", however, doesn't practically appear but in Latin beginners' translations, as thesentence should indicate (puero liber est). Some dialects have "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch" which is literally a dativuspossessivus. If a genitive is unmarked and without article (practically, in the plural), usage of von (and after it, adative) is not only legitimate but required, as in: "Die Belange von Minderheiten sind zu schützen" (minorities' affairsare to be protected). In that case, Belange der Minderheiten would produce a definite article which is not intended,and Minderheiten itself is somewhat an unmarked plural. Additionally, the dative case is commonly used to indicatepossession of bodily parts that are the direct objects of an action. Constructions such as er brach sich den Arm("he broke his arm", but literally "he broke himself the arm") and Du stichst dir die Augen aus, Junge! ("You'll putyour eyes out, kid!" but literally "you [will] put yourself the eyes out, kid!" ) are typical and correct in any context.In English this construction only occurs in the construction to look someone in the eye and its variants.

Dative

The dative case governs the indirect object of a sentence and location. The sentence "Ich gebe meinem Sohn einenHund" (Eng. I give my son a dog) contains a subject "ich"; a verb "gebe"; an indirect object "meinem Sohn"; and adirect object "einen Hund". "Meinem Sohn" is the to whom or the destination of the object of the subject's action,and therefore takes the masculine dative -m.

Dative also focuses on location. (See accusative or dative prepositions below). German places strong emphasis onthe difference between location and motion, the accusative case governing motion and the dative governing location.There are four important verbs that show this dichotomy: hängen/hängen, legen/liegen, stellen/stehen, setzen/sitzen(motion/location). To demonstrate the accusitive use, take the example "ich hänge das Bild an die Wand," "I hangthe picture on(to) the wall." This sentence demonstrates motion: note the accusitive article of 'Wand'. On the otherhand, consider the sentence "das Bild hängt an der Wand." This sentence shows location; now, the picture islocated on the wall, so "Wand" is dative.

Cases after prepositions

The case of a noun after a preposition is decided by that preposition. No prepositions require the nominative case,but any other case may follow one, for example, the preposition für (for) is followed by the accusative case, theword mit (with) is followed by the dative, and the word außerhalb (outside of) is followed by the genitive case.Certain prepositions, called "two way prepositions", have objects either in dative or accusative, depending onwhether the use implies position (e.g. in der Küche = "in the kitchen", dative case) or direction (e.g. in die Küche("into the kitchen", accusative case).

Prepositions and cases

Prepositions in German can be difficult for English speakers to master. The simple reason is that prepositions aredesigned to give some direction, location, intensity, etc. to a sentence. The way an English speaker would indicatesuch things may be totally different from the way a German speaker would.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition



Furthermore, there are instances where German uses a preposition in a way that might seem strange to a nativeEnglish speaker, e.g. as a separable prefix attributed to a verb. For example, in "Mach' die Lichter aus!" (Turn thelights off!), aus (out) is used instead of "ab". There is also the counterintuitive verb ausschlafen, literally "to sleepout", which actually means "sleep in".

The objects of some prepositions have a fixed case. For example, if 'bei', a dative preposition, is used in asentence, its object will be dative, as in the sentence "Ich mache einen Besuch bei meiner Familie. (I'm visiting withmy family). Notice the dative femine inflection on "mein".

The following chart shows the cases associated with several prepositions in common usage.[3][4][5]

Accusative Dative Genitive Accusative or dative

bis aus anstatt* an

durch außer statt* auf

für bei außerhalb hinter

gegen gegenüber innerhalb in

ohne mit trotz* neben

um nach während* über

wider seit wegen* unter

entlang*** von jenseits vor

zu seitens zwischen

gemäß anhand

laut** mithilfe

* with dative colloquially and with pronouns.** may take a "hypercorrect" genitive.*** as a preposition takes the genitive or a colloquial dative: entlang des Weges (dem Weg) “along the way”, butas a postposition it takes the accusative with identical meaning: den Weg entlang.

“Unusual” prepositions, which exist in vast amount in bureaucratic style, as a rule take the genitive. The nascentpreposition "Richtung" (lit. "direction", as in "ich fahre (in) Richtung München", I'm driving in the direction of

Munich) takes an accusative. An expanded list of prepositions taking the genitive case may be found here.[6]

Prepositions with either dative or accusative mean location with dative and direction with accusative (rule withoutexception).

Declension of adjectives

The declension of an adjective depends not only on the gender, number and case of the noun it modifies, but alsoon whether the indefinite article, definite article or no article is used with it. The following table shows two exampleswhich exemplify all three cases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection



Masculine nominative singular Feminine dative singular

definite

article

der hübsche Mann (the/that

handsome man)vor der verschlossenen Tür (in front of the/that locked door)

indefinitearticle

ein hübscher Mann (a handsome

man)

vor einer verschlossenen Tür (in front of a locked door) [a specific

door]

no article hübscher Mann (handsome man)vor verschlossener Tür (in front of a locked door) [an undefined

door or any door]

Declension of adjectives is mandatory even in proper names. The name of Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, forinstance, changes into "das Kunsthistorische Museum" when preceded by a definite article. Adjectival bynamesgiven to historical or legendary persons, must also be declined according to their grammatical role in a phrase orsentence. Hence, one says Karl der Große ist im Jahre 800 Kaiser geworden ("Charlemagne became emperorin the year 800"), but das Schwert Karls des Großen ("The sword of Charlemagne").

Plurals

The German language has twelve different ways of forming the plural. A student of German as a foreign languagemust learn the plural for each new noun learned; although many feminine nouns are very regular in the formation ofthe plural, many masculine and neuter nouns are not. For example, some plurals are formed with an "n", some with"en", some with an umlaut and an "e", other plurals are the same as the singular, some add "er" or an umlaut and"er". Many loanwords borrowed from another language, as well as some dialectal or colloquial nouns, take a pluralin "s" (e.g. das Restaurant → die Restaurants). Some foreign endings such as Latin -um are deleted before theplural ending (e.g. das Zentrum → die Zentren). A few loanwords have a different stress in the plural than in thesingular (e.g. der Muslim → die Muslime).

singular plural

die Frau (woman) die Frauen

der Mann (man) die Männer

die Kuh (cow) die Kühe

der Globus (globe) die Globen

der Atlas (atlas) die Atlanten

der Kuss (kiss) die Küsse

der Bus (bus) die Busse

das Kabel (cable) die Kabel

das Auto (car) die Autos

die Mitarbeiterin ((female) employee) die Mitarbeiterinnen

der Kaktus (cactus ) die Kakteen

Note that instead of Globen, Atlanten, Kakteen the more regular plurals Globusse, Atlasse, Kaktusse are usuallypreferred in colloquial speech. Special colloquial or dialectal plural forms exist also for some native words. Forexample, Stöcker is often used as the plural of Stock "stick" in northern Germany, whereas the standard plural is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlaut_(diacritic)



Stöcke.

Although ancient German plurals called for morphologically distinct gender markings, this is no longer the case.With regard to the treatment of adjectives and articles, this amounts almost to the plural number behaving as afourth gender. Textbooks and articles typically list the articles or adjectival endings for plurals in the next row orcolumn where a fourth gender would be given if it existed. What this suggests is not completely true, but it is usuallyan effective approach for non-native speakers studying the language.

Nominal (or noun) phrases

(The content of this section is not yet applicable for proper names.)

A German nominal phrase, in general, consists of the following components in the following order:article, number (cardinal or ordinal), adjective(s), noun, genitive attribute, position(s), relative clause, reflexivepronoun

"Die dritte umwerfende Vorstellung des Schillerdramas in dieser Woche in Hamburg"

(the third stunning performance of the drama by Schiller this week in Hamburg)

Of course, most noun phrases are not this complicated; adjectives, numbers, genitive attributes, positions, relativeclauses and emphasizers are always optional.

A nominal phrase contains at least a cardinal number, an adjective, a pronoun, or a noun. It always has an article,except if it is an indefinite plural noun or refers to an uncountable mass.

"Die Drei" (the three of them)

"Der große Mann" (the tall man)

"Der Mann" (the man)

If the noun is uncountable, an article is not used; otherwise, the meaning of the sentence changes.

"Ich kaufe billiges Bier" (I buy cheap beer)

"Ich kaufe ein billiges Bier" (I buy a bottle/can/glass/sort ... of cheap beer)

"Ich habe Geld" (I have money)

"Ich habe das Geld" (I have the money) or (I have enough money to...)

A nominal phrase can be regarded a single unit. It has a case, a number, and a gender. Case and number dependon the context, whereas the main noun determines the gender.

Genitive attribute

A nominal phrase may have a genitive attribute, for example to express possession. This attribute may be seen asmerely another nominal phrase in the genitive case which may hang off another nominal phrase.

"Der Beruf des alten Mannes" (The profession of the old man.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_phrase


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncountable_noun



"Die Hütte des Häuptlings des Stammes" (The hut of the chief of the tribe)

(genitive phrase has its own genitive phrase). This is uncommon in modern German. "Die Hütte des

Stammeshäuptlings" (The hut of the tribe's chief/tribeschief) is preferred.

A direct translation of "Der Beruf des alten Mannes" would be "the profession of the old man." "The old man'sprofession" could be translated directly and correctly as "Des alten Mannes Beruf", though this form is almost neverused in modern German, even if educated circles regarded it a very elegant use of language. It is found in poetry,especially if helpful for metrical and rhyming purposes.

Position

A nominal phrase may contain a "position phrase"; this may be seen as merely another nominal phrase with apreposition (or postposition) or a pronominal adverb (See Adverbial phrases).

"Eine Wolke am Himmel" (a cloud in the sky)

"Der Bundeskanzler während des Bürgerkriegs im Kongo" (the Chancellor during the civil war in the Congo)

(position phrase has its own position phrase)

"Der Regen im Dschungel im Sommer" (the rain in the jungle in the summer)

(Several position phrases)

"Der Berg dort" (that mountain over there)

Extended attribute phrase

German permits lengthy nominal modifiers, for instance:

"Der während des Bürgerkrieges amtierende Premierminister" (literally: the during-the-civil-war office-holdingprime minister), the Prime Minister holding office / officiating during the civil war.

"Die noch zu Anfang des Kurses relativ kleinen, aber doch merklichen Verständigungsschwierigkeiten" (literally:The still-at-the-beginning-of-the-course-relatively-small-but-nevertheless-noticeable communicationdifficulties), the communication difficulties still relatively small at the beginning of the course, but neverthelessnoticeable.

These are a feature of written (particularly educated) German. One also might hear them in the context of formaloral communications as well (such as news broadcasts, speeches, etc.).

Relative clause

A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronominal_adverb




Aside from their highly inflected forms, German relative pronouns are less complicated than English. There are twovarieties. The more common one is based on the definite article der, die, das, but with distinctive forms in thegenitive (dessen, deren) and in the dative plural (denen). Historically this is related to English that. The second,which is more literary and used for emphasis, is the relative use of welcher, welche, welches, comparable withEnglish which. As in most Germanic languages, including Old English, both of these inflect according to gender,case and number. They take their gender and number from the noun they modify, but the case from their function intheir own clause.

Das Haus, in dem ich wohne, ist sehr alt.

The house in which I live is very old.

The relative pronoun dem is neuter singular to agree with Haus, but dative because it follows a preposition in itsown clause. On the same basis, it would be possible to substitute the pronoun welchem.

However, German uses the uninflecting was ('what') as a relative pronoun when the antecedent is alles, etwas ornichts ('everything', 'something', 'nothing'.), or when the antecedent is an entire clause.

Alles, was Jack macht, gelingt ihm.

Everything that Jack does is a success.

Jack vergaß sein Buch, was niemanden überraschte.

Jack forgot his book, which surprised nobody.

In German, all relative clauses are marked with a comma.

Articles and article-like words

The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun. Articles have thesame plural forms for all three genders.

Cardinal numbers

In relation to nouns, cardinal numbers are placed before adjectives, if any. If the number is relatively low, it isusually not combined with an indefinite plural article (e.g. einige or mehrere). Personal pronouns of the first andsecond person are placed before numbers. Personal pronouns of the third person cannot be used with numbers.

"Drei Hunde" (three dogs)

"Die vier apokalyptischen Reiter" (the four horsemen of the Apocalypse)

NOT: "Einige fünf Äpfel" BUT: "Einige Äpfel" or "Fünf Äpfel" (some apples, five apples)

"Ein paar tausend Euro" (a couple thousand euros)

"Wir vier" (we four)



The use of cardinal numbers requires the plural form of the noun or nominal phrase.[7]

NOT: "Zehn Pferd" BUT: "Zehn Pferde" (ten horses)

EXCEPTION: "Zehn Bier" (colloquial) and "Zehn Biere" (semi-formal) are both acceptable, with respect to

certain nouns such as beverages.

The cardinal number "one" is identical in form and inflection to the indefinite article. The number is distinguishedfrom the article in speech by intonation and in writing sometimes by emphasis (italics or spacing: "ein" or "e i n"). Incolloquial German, the indefinite article ein is usually shorted to [ən] (like English an), whereas eine becomes [nə].In dialects, the shortening may arrive at [ə] (Schwa, like English a) or [a] in Upper German regions. The cardinalnumber (= one), however, always retains its full pronunciation.

"Ein rotes Buch" may mean

"a red book" - ein rotes Buch; or

"one red book" - ein rotes Buch

The numbers zwei (two) and drei (three) have case endings in some instances. Where an adjective would haveweak endings, numbers do not have endings. If an adjective had strong endings, these numbers may also havestrong endings in the genitive case

"das Haus zweier junger Frauen" (two young women's house)

If there is no other word carrying the strong ending of the genitive plural, the numbers must carry it.

"die Reise dreier Schwestern" (three sisters' voyage)

If these numbers are center of a nominal phrase in the dative plural and no other word carries case markers, theymay carry dative endings.

"Zweien habe ich Bananen gegeben" (I have given bananas to two (of them); lit.: "Twain have I bananas given.")

Adjectives

German adjectives normally go before the noun which they are changing. German adjectives have endings whichdepend on the case, number and (in the singular) gender of the nominal phrase, but there are in fact two sets ofendings, called the strong endings and the weak endings. Which set is used depends on what kind of word theadjective comes after, and sometimes also on the gender and case.

Like articles, adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders.

"Ein lauter Krach" (a loud noise)

"Der laute Krach" (the loud noise)

"Der große, schöne Mond" (the big, beautiful moon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphasis_(typography)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_German



Participles may be used as adjectives and are treated in the same way.

In contrast to Romance languages, adjectives are only declined in the attributive position (that is, when used innominal phrases to describe a noun directly). Predicative adjectives, separated from the noun by "to be", forexample, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs.

NOT: "Die Musik ist laute" BUT "Die Musik ist laut" ((the) music is loud) or, rarely, "Die Musik ist eine laute"

((the) music is a loud one)

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form and superlative form. In contrast to Latinor Italian, there is no grammatical feature for the absolute superlative (elative). (However, an elative form exists forsome adverbs, e.g. bestens "very well" or schnellstens "very fast".)

Pronouns

The pronouns of the third person may be used to replace nominal phrases. These have the same gender, numberand case as the original nominal phrase. This goes for other pronouns, too.

pronoun [position(s)] [relative clause]

Personal pronouns

Personal Pronouns

1st sg. 2nd sg. 3rd sg. 1st pl. 2nd pl. 3rd pl. 2nd formal

Nominative (subject) ich du er sie es wir ihr sie Sie

Genitive (possessive) meiner deiner seiner ihrer seiner unser euer ihrer Ihrer

Dative (indirect object) mir dir ihm ihr ihm uns euch ihnen Ihnen

Accusative (direct object) mich dich ihn sie es uns euch sie Sie

The reflexive personal pronoun (in English, "myself" etc.) takes distinct forms only in the 3rd person (and 2ndperson formal address) dative and accusative, to wit, sich. (Uncapitalized also in the 2nd person formal).

Adverbial phrases

Verbs

German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowelgradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though varioussubgroups and anomalies do arise. The only completely irregular verb in the language is "sein" (to be). However,textbooks for foreign learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are fewer than 200 strong and irregularverbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

Verbs in sentence structure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributive_adjective

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_adjective

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superlative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoun



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_consonant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_ablaut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_verb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb



In German sentences the verb is always placed as the second element. When there are two verbs in a sentence theyare placed as the second and last elements respectively. However, this rule can change when a subordinatingconjunction is used. A verb placed as the second element does not necessarily mean it is the second word; forinstance the second element could follow both an article and a noun, or a possessive pronoun and a noun.

Examples: (Underlined word indicates verb as second element).

Ich spiele Fußball am Samstag. (I play football on Saturday).

Meine Katze ist schwarz und weiß. (My cat is black and white).

Examples: (Underlined words indicate verbs as both second and last elements).

Ich werde morgen nach Deutschland fliegen. (I will fly to Germany tomorrow).

Sie möchte einen besseren Computer kaufen. (She would-like to buy a better computer).

The position of the second verb is changed when a subordinating conjunction is used. When one is used in themiddle of the sentence, the second verb is sent directly to the end of the sentence. For example: (First underlinedword indicates the suboordinating conjunction, second underlined word indicates the verb at the end of thesentence).

Ihr Pulli ist aus rotem Stoff, weil er ein Liverpool-Pulli ist.

Separable verbs

German has many verbs that have a separable prefix that can be unattached to its root. Examples are aussehen, toappear or look, and vorstellen, to imagine, or to introduce.

Peter sieht spitze in seinem Anzug aus. Peter looks handsome (lit sharp) in his suit.

Lori, kennst du meine Frau? Ja? Wer stellte euch vor? Lori, do you know my wife? Yeah? Who

introduced you?

Modal particles

Modal particles (Abtönungspartikel) are a part of speech used frequently in spoken German. These words affectthe tone of a sentence instead of conveying a specific literal meaning. Typical examples of this kind of word inGerman are doch, mal, halt, eben, nun, schon, eh or ja. Many of these words also have a more basic, specificmeaning (e.g. ja "yes", schon "already"), but in their modal use, this meaning is not directly expressed.

Sentences

German sentence structure is somewhat more complex than that in other languages, with phrases regularly invertedfor both questions and subordinate phrases.

References



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessive_pronoun



Notes

1. ^ Durrell, Martin; Hammer, A.E. (2002), Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (Fourth ed.), McGraw-Hill,

pp. 1–10, ISBN 978-0-07-139654-7

2. ^ Relation of the form and gender http://jakubmarian.com/how-to-recognize-gender-in-german-using-endings/

3. ^ German accusative prepositions http://german.about.com/library/blcase_acc2.htm

4. ^ German Dative Prepositions http://german.about.com/library/blcase_dat2.htm

5. ^ German Genitive Prepositions http://german.about.com/library/blcase_gen2.htm

6. ^ http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Praeposition/Kasus/Genitiv.html

7. ^ This is in contrast to some languages such as Turkish: e.g., "Zehn Pferde," not "Zehn Pferd" (cf. Turkish On

At).

Bibliography

Wietusch, Gudrun (2006). Grundkurs Grammatik. Cornelsen. ISBN 978-3-464-61805-9

Pahlow, Heike (2010). Deutsche Grammatik - einfach, kompakt und übersichtlich. Engelsdorfer Verlag,

Leipzig. ISBN 978-3-86268-012-2

External links

Canoo.net (http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Ueberblick/index.html?lang=en) – German

Dictionaries and Grammar in German and English

German Grammar (http://www.deutschseite.de/) – Toms Deutschseite - German grammar explained by a

native speaker (in English)

German Grammar Lessons (http://www.deutsched.com/Grammar/) – German grammar lessons along with

exercises

Lingolia German Grammar (http://deutsch.lingolia.com/en/grammar) – German Grammar explanations with

exercises

German grammar overview (http://www.Lernort-mint.de/German) German grammar (in English) (+ multiple

choice test) explained by a native speaker.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_grammar&oldid=613334986"

Categories: German grammar

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http://german.about.com/library/blcase_acc2.htm

http://german.about.com/library/blcase_dat2.htm

http://german.about.com/library/blcase_gen2.htm

http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Praeposition/Kasus/Genitiv.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9783464618059


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6/21/2014 German adjectives - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives 1/5

German adjectivesFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German adjectives come before the noun, as in English, and are not capitalised. However, as in French and otherIndo-European languages (but not English), they are generally inflected when they come before a noun: they take anending that depends on the gender and case of the noun phrase.

Ein kleiner Mann (a short man; masculine gender)

Eine kleine Frau (a short woman; feminine gender)

Ein kleines Mädchen (a short girl; neuter gender)

The type of article or determiner preceding the noun also affects the inflection: in German, 'a red book' and 'the redbook' have different adjective endings:

Ein rotes Buch

Das rote Buch

Like articles, adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders, though this does vary with the article ordeterminer as described above.

Eine lustige Frau (a funny woman, feminine gender)

Ein lustiger Mann (a funny man, masculine gender)

Die lustigen Frauen (the funny women, plural)

Die lustigen Männer (the funny men, plural)

Participles may be used as adjectives and are treated in the same way.

Ein wieder geöffneter Bahnhof (a re-opened railway station; masculine)

Eine wieder geöffnete Bibliothek (a re-opened library; feminine)

German adjectives are declined only when they come before the noun in which they describe. This is called theattributive position of a nominal phrase. Predicative adjectives, those in English separated from the noun by is orare, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs, unlike in Romance and North Germanic languages.

Die laute Musik. ("The loud music.")

Die Musik ist laut. ("The music is loud.") Not Die Musik ist laute.

There are some words that can be used as adjectives but are not inflected, such as Schweizer ("Swiss") andJerusalemer ("pertaining to Jerusalem", for example Jerusalemer Kreuz).

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form, and superlative form: these correspond to(and have the same endings as) English equivalents such as 'large', 'larger' and 'largest'. 'Very loud' is said as sehrlaut; as in English but unlike Italian and Latin, no ending exists to express this absolute superlative form as a singleword.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_phrase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_(class)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar#Articles_and_article-like_words

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributive_adjective



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/de:Schweizer

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/de:Jerusalemer_Kreuz






Contents

1 Weak and strong inflection

1.1 Strong inflection

1.2 Mixed inflection

1.3 Weak inflection

1.4 No inflection

1.5 Criteria for Inflection

1.5.1 Strong Inflection

1.5.2 Mixed Inflection

1.5.3 Weak inflection

2 Adjective comparison

2.1 Positive form

2.2 Comparative form

2.3 Superlative form

3 External links

Weak and strong inflection

Strong inflection

Strong inflection is used:

When no article is used

When a quantity is indicated by

etwas (some; somewhat), mehr (more)

wenig- (few), viel- (much; many), mehrer- (several; many), einig- (some)

a number (greater than one, i.e. with no endings)

non inflectable phrases: ein paar (a couple; a few), ein bisschen (a bit; a little bit)

The adjective endings are the same as the definite article endings, apart from the adjectival ending "-en" in themasculine and neuter genitive singular.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_articles



Masculine Neuter Feminine Plural

Nominative neuer neues neue neue

Accusative neuen neues neue neue

Dative neuem neuem neuer neuen

Genitive neuen neuen neuer neuer

Mixed inflection

Mixed inflection is used after:

indefinite article ein-, kein-, eine, keine

possessive determiners "mein-", "dein-", "sein-" etc.

Nominative and accusative singular endings follow the definite article; all other forms end with "-en".


Nominative neuer neues neue neuen

Accusative neuen neues neue neuen

Dative neuen neuen neuen neuen

Genitive neuen neuen neuen neuen

Weak inflection

Weak inflection is used after:

definite articles (der, die, das, etc)

derselb- (the same), derjenig- (the one)

dies- (this), jen- (that), jeglich- (any), jed- (every), which decline like the definite article.

manch- (some), solch- (such), welch- (which), which decline like the definite article.

alle (all)

Five endings in the nominative and accusative cases end with -e, all others with -en.


Nominative neue neue neue neuen

Accusative neuen neue neue neuen

Dative neuen neuen neuen neuen

Genitive neuen neuen neuen neuen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessive_determiner



Plural nouns that do not already end with -(e)n or -s always have an -n added to the plural form in the dative case,no matter what inflection is being used. This process then yields the following: den armen Leuten, ihren armenKindern, or kalten Getränken, but also den Autos or den Radios which do not gain the ending.

No inflection

Several quantifying words are not inflected:

nichts, wenig, etwas, viel, and genug

numbers greater than one

"wenig" and "viel" can be put in the plural, where they take endings as normal: viele/wenige Kinder

Criteria for Inflection

German adjectives take different sets of endings in different circumstances. Essentially, the adjectives must providecase, gender and number information only if the articles do not. This is among the more confusing aspects ofGerman grammar for those learning the language. However, the adjective endings nearly always adhere to thefollowing rules:

Strong Inflection

The strong inflection is used when there is no article at all, or if the noun is preceded by a non-inflectable word orphrase such as ein bisschen, etwas or viel ("a little, some, a lot of/much"). It is also used when the adjective ispreceded merely by another regular (i.e non-article) adjective.

Mixed Inflection

The mixed inflection is used when the adjective is preceded by an indefinite article (ein-, kein-) or a possessivedeterminer.

Note: The prevailing view is that the mixed inflection is not a true inflection in its own right, but merely the weakinflection with a few additions to compensate for the lack of the masculine nominative and neuter nominative andaccusative endings.

Weak inflection

The weak inflection is used when there is a definite word in place (der, die, das, den, dem, des, jed-, jen-, manch-, dies-, solch- and welch-). The definite word has provided most of the necessary information, so the adjectiveendings are simpler.

The endings are applicable to every degree of comparison (positive, comparative, and superlative).

Adjective comparison

Positive form



The basic form of the adjective is the positive form: the adjective stem with the appropriate ending.

schön (basic positive form)

das schöne Lied ("the beautiful song")

Comparative form

The basic comparative form consists of the stem and the suffix -er. Inflected, the corresponding adjective ending isattached.

schöner (basic comparative form)

das schönere Lied ("the more beautiful song")

Superlative form

A predicate form of the superlative is actually a prepositional phrase. You attach the suffixes -st and the adjectiveending -en to the root, and the word am is put before it.

am schönsten ("the most beautiful")

Ich finde dieses Haus am schönsten. ("I find this house (to be) the most beautiful.")

The attributive superlative form adds the "st" to the comparative root and then the conventional adjective ending.

das schönste Lied

This form can also be placed in a predicate position with the appropriate adjective ending:

Dieses Haus ist das schönste. ("This house is the most beautiful.")

External links

Helmut Richter. "German Declension" (http://hhr-m.userweb.mwn.de/de-decl/). Retrieved 2008-02-05.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(grammar)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepositional_phrase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affix


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributive

http://hhr-m.userweb.mwn.de/de-decl/

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6/21/2014 German adverbial phrases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adverbial_phrases 1/4

German adverbial phrasesFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of a verb, and an adverbial phrase is a combination of words thatperform the same function. The German language includes several different kinds of adverbial phrases.

Contents

1 Native adverbs

2 Accusative nouns with adverbial meaning

3 Adverbial forms of adjectives

4 Adverbs ending in -erweise

5 Prepositional phrases

5.1 Pronominal adverb

5.2 Adverbial clause

Native adverbs

Many adverbs are not derived from an adjective. Often they have very important meanings. For example, nicht,leider or gerne ("not", "unfortunately", "gladly").

Accusative nouns with adverbial meaning

The duration or the spatial extent of a verb's action can be expressed by a nominal expression in the accusativecase.

Das Kind malte die ganze Zeit Bilder ("The child was painting pictures all the time")

Adverbial forms of adjectives

Adverb formation is simpler in German than most other languages. An adverb is simply the uninflected form of theadjective (or participle). This holds for the positive and comparative forms. The superlative is formed with thepreposition am and the ending -en, e.g. am schönsten "most beautifully". Only a limited number of adverbs have aspecial elative form ending in -stens, e.g. schnellstens ('as fast as possible'), bestens ('very well').

schnell ("fast, quickly")

groß ("big, substantially")

fließend ("fluent, fluently")

schneller ("faster, more quickly")



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_phrase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_phrase




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participle




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative



fließender ("more fluent, more fluently")

am schönsten ("most beautiful, most beautifully")

The adverb can be used to describe actions, adjectives or other adverbs. Comparative and superlative forms areunusual in the last two situations.

Der Vogel fliegt schnell ("the bird flies fast")

Der Vogel fliegt am schnellsten ("the bird flies the fastest")

Ein schrecklich langsam wachsender Baum ("a terribly slow-growing tree") (literally, "a terribly slowly

growing tree")

Ein schneller wachsender Baum ("a faster-growing tree")

In English, adverbs are usually distinguished from adjectives by the ending -ly. In German, they may bedinstinguished by their lack of declension, because adjectives in predicative position must be declined. Compare:

ein schrecklich hoher Berg – an awfully high mountain.

ein schrecklicher, hoher Berg - an awful, high mountain.

Adverbs ending in -erweise

Unlike English, the German language distinguishes adverbs which qualify verbs or adjectives from those whichqualify whole sentences. For the latter case, many German adjectives from a special adverb form ending in -erweise, e.g. glücklicherweise "luckily", traurigerweise "sadly" (from Weise = way, manner).

In the following two example sentences, the adverb lustig "funnily" qualifies the verb, while lustigerweise "funnily"qualifies the whole sentence:

Er hat lustig gesungen. – He sang funnily. (= He sang in a way that was funny.)

Er hat lustigerweise gesungen. – Funnily, he sang. (= It was funny that he sang.)

As in the above example, English usually expresses the difference by placing the adverb which qualifies a sentence,in the beginning. In German, it can be placed in the beginning or elsewhere in the sentence.

Prepositional phrases

A prepositional phrase consists of a nominal phrase and an adposition (a preposition, postposition, orcircumposition). The case of the nominal phrase can be accusative or dative. Some prepositions always take theaccusative case and some always take the dative case. Students usually memorize these because the difference maynot be intuitive. A third group of prepositions, called two way prepositions, take either the accusative case or thedative case depending on the phrase's exact meaning. If the statement describes movement across a boundary thenthe phrase is accusative. Other situations, including movement within a confined area, take the dative case. Forexample:

Ich schlafe im Haus. (dative case) ("I sleep inside the house.") ["im" is a contraction of in & dem]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepositional_phrase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postposition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumposition



Ich laufe ins Haus. (accusative case) ("I run into the house.") ["ins" is a contraction of in & das]

Ich laufe im Haus. (dative case) ("I run within the house.")

Note that prepositions do not always have a locative meaning; they can also be modal or temporal adverbs, forexample.

Prepositional phrases, being adverbial, may be used to describe actions and adjectives. They can also be attributesof a nominal phrase.

Ich gehe ins Haus ("I go into the house")

(Eis ist) während der Sommerzeit begehrt ("ice-cream is much sought-after in the summertime")

In some cases, the preposition and the article of the nominal phrase may or must elide together. This is similar toItalian.

NOT von dem Himmel BUT vom Himmel

Pronominal adverb

A real position can be substituted by a pronominal adverb.

auf dem Tisch - darauf ("on the table - on there")

auf den Berg hinauf - dort hinauf ("up the mountain - up there")

während der Schulstunde - währenddessen ("during the lesson - during it")

der Gerechtigkeit wegen - deswegen ("because of justice - because of it / therfore / hence")

mit dem Flugzeug - damit ("by plane - by it")

Pronominal adverbs may be preceded by an adverbial clause. See below.

Adverbial clause

Besides prepositional phrases and pronominal adverbs, there are also adverbial clauses. They can be applied toactions as well as to nominal phrases and pronominal adverbs.

Ich ging nach Hause, während die Sonne unterging ("I went home as the sun was setting")

damals - damals, als/während Helmut Kohl Bundeskanzler war ("in those days, when/while Helmut Kohl

was chancellor")

in jenem Jahr - in jenem Jahr, als/während Helmut Kohl Bundeskanzler war ("in that year, when/while

Helmut Kohl was chancellor")

Such a sentence can also completely replace a position or pronominal adverb. ("The previous sentence needs to beclarified by someone knowledgeable")

als Willy Brandt Bundeskanzler war INSTEAD OF damals, als Willy Brandt Bundeskanzler war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar#Nominal_phrases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elision


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_clause



("when Willy Brandt was chancellor / in those days when Willy Brandt was chancellor")

wo die Sonne scheint INSTEAD OF am Himmel, wo die Sonne scheint ("where the sun shines / in the

sky, where the sun shines")

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6/21/2014 German articles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_articles 1/4

Declension of the indefinite article (ein) and negative article

(kein). Keep in mind that ein has no plural forms.

German articlesFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German articles are used similarly to the English articles, a and the. However, they are declined differentlyaccording to the number, gender, and case of their nouns.

Contents

1 Declension

1.1 The Indefinite Article

1.2 The Definite Article

2 Possessive "article-like" pronouns

3 Genitive and dative cases

4 External links

Declension

The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun. Articles have thesame plural forms for all three genders.

The Indefinite Article

This article, ein-, is used equivalently to the word ain English, though it literally means one. Like itsEnglish equivalent (though unlike Italian), it has nodirect form for a plural; in this situation a range ofalternatives such as einige (some; several) ormanche (some) would be used.

Indefinite article endings (mixed)


Nominative ein ein eine -eine

Accusative einen ein eine -eine

Dative einem einem einer -einen

Genitive eines eines einer -einer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_indefinite_article_declension.png



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declension




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives#Mixed_inflection







Declension of the definite article

The same endings are used for the negative indefinite article (kein-), and the possessive pronouns, mein- (my),dein- (your, used to a friend), sein- (his), ihr- (her and their), unser- (our), euer/eur- (your, if addressing a group),Ihr- (your if addressing an authority figure, always capitalised).

The Definite Article

This table gives endings for the definite article,equivalent to English the.

Definite article (strong)


Nominative der das die die

Accusative den das die die

Dative dem dem der den

Genitive des des der der

The demonstrative pronouns (dies-, jen-) (this, that; strong) and the relative pronoun (welch-, jed-) (which, every;strong) take identical endings, which are preceded by -e- if it is not already present.

Definite article endings (strong)


Nominative -er -es -e -e

Accusative -en -es -e -e

Dative -em -em -er -en

Genitive -es -es -er -er

Note that this is essentially the same as the indefinite article table, but with the masculine nominative -er and

the neuter nominative and accusative -es.

Possessive "article-like" pronouns

Under some circumstances (e.g. in a relative clause) the regular possessive pronouns are replaced by the genitiveforms of the pronouns derived from the definite article. English equivalents could be, "The king, whose armyNapoleon had defeated..." or "The Himalayas, the highest parts of which were as yet unsurveyed...". They agree in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_definite_article_declension.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives#Strong_inflection




number and gender with the possessor. Unlike other pronouns they carry no strength. Any adjective following themin the phrase will carry the strong endings.

There are possessive pronouns derived from the definite article and derived from the interrogative article. They havethe same forms for all cases of the possessed word, but they are only rarely used in the genitive case.

Definite possessive [of the] (mixed)

Masculine: dessen

Neuter: dessen

Feminine: deren

Plural: deren

Interrogative possessive [of what] (mixed)

Masculine: wessen

Neuter: wessen

Feminine: wessen

Plural: wessen

NOT: Die Soldaten dessen Armee (Correct: Die Soldaten dieser Armee)

Up until the 18th century, a genitive noun was often used instead of a possessive pronoun. This is occasionallyfound in very literary modern German, and sometimes hence used for a facetious effect.

OLD: "Des Königs Krone" (The king's crown)

(MODERN: "Die Krone des Königs" - BUT: "Die Königskrone" (compound noun))

These pronouns are used if using the ordinary possessive pronoun is understood reflexively, or there are severalpossessors.

Genitive and dative cases

German articles in the genitive and dative cases directly indicate the actions of owning and giving without needingadditional words (indeed, this is their function), which can make German sentences appear confusing to Englishlearners. The gender matches the receiver's gender (not the object's gender) for the dative case, and the owner'sgender for the genitive.

Ich gebe die Karten dem Mann - I give the cards to the man.

Die Entwicklung unseres Dorfes - The growth of our village.

For further details as to the usage of German cases, see German grammar.

External links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar



Helmut Richter. "German Declension" (http://hhr-m.userweb.mwn.de/de-decl/). Retrieved 2008-02-05.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_articles&oldid=608203103"

Categories: German grammar German declension

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6/21/2014 German modal particle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_modal_particle 1/4

German modal particleFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the German language, a modal particle (German: Modalpartikel or Abtönungspartikel) is an uninflected wordused mainly in spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers. These words have a dual function: reflecting themood or attitude of the speaker or narrator, and highlighting the sentence focus.

The effect that a flavoring particle has is often vague and dependent on the overall context. Speakers often use themsomewhat excessively, and sometimes combine several particles, as in doch mal, ja nun, or even ja doch nunmal. They are a feature typical of the spoken language.

List of modal particles

Halt, eben, einmal* (in this context, always unshortened) and nun einmal (shortened: nun mal) imply that the(often unpleasant) fact expressed in a sentence cannot be changed and must be accepted. Halt and nun mal aremore colloquial than eben. In English, they could be rendered to "as a matter of fact" or by a "happen to"construction.

Gute Kleider sind eben teuer. ("Good clothes are expensive, it can't be helped."/"Good clothes happen to be

expensive.")

Er hat mich provoziert, da habe ich ihn halt geschlagen. ("He provoked me, so I hit him – what did you

expect?")

Es ist nun einmal so. ("That's just how it is.")

Ja (engl. "after all") indicates that the speaker thinks a certain fact should already be known to the listener andintends his statement to be more of a reminder or conclusion.

Ich habe ihm ein Buch geschenkt, er liest ja sehr gerne. ("I gave him a book; as you know he likes to read.")

Ich verleihe kein Geld, das zerstört ja nur Freundschaften. ("I never lend money. Everyone knows that only

destroys friendships.")

Einmal, shortened mal (literally: once, translation roughly: "for once") also indicates a certain immediacy to theaction or even implies a command. On the other hand, it can give a kind of casualness to a sentence and so makingit sound less blunt.

"Hör mal zu!" (Listen!" or "Listen to me"!)

"Beeile dich mal!" ("Do hurry up!")

Sing mal etwas Schönes! ("Why don't you sing something pretty?")

Schauen wir mal. (lit.: "Let's take one look." meaning: "Let's just relax and then we'll see what we'll be

doing.")


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_particle


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninflected_word

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(linguistics)



Doch can have several meanings. (See also yes and no: three-form systems.) For one, it can be used affirmatively,or it can convey emphasis, urgency or impatience, or it can serve as a reply to a real or imagined, or pre-emptivelyanswered, disagreement, hesitation, or wrong assumption on the part of the listener, or other people. In othersituations this can have different effects.

Gehst Du nicht nach Hause? Doch, ich gehe gleich. ("Are you not going home?" "Oh, yes, I am going in a

moment".) (Affirmation of a negative question; obligatory.)

Komm doch her! ("Do come here!") (Emphatically)

Komm doch endlich her! ("Do come on! Get a move on!") (More emphatically and impatiently)

Ich habe dir doch gesagt, dass es nicht so ist. ("I did tell you that it's not like that.")

Ich kenne mich in Berlin aus. Ich war doch letztes Jahr schon dort. ("I know my way around Berlin. I was

here last year, after all/as a matter of fact.")

In this way, doch can be similar to schon (indeed), but schon implies an actual qualification of the statement, oftenmade explicit in a phrase with aber ("but"):

Ich war schon auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich nicht. ("I was indeed at the party, but I did not enjoy

myself.")

This is not to be confused with the literal meaning of, unstressed, schon: already. However, at least in writing schon"already" must either be made unmistakable by the context, e. g. by additional adverbs, or replaced by itsequivalent bereits.

Ich war schon (/bereits) auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich (noch) nicht. ("I was already at the party, but I

had not (yet) been enjoying myself.")

In other contexts, doch indicates that the action described in the sentence was, in fact, unlikely to occur:

Du bist also doch gekommen! ("You came after all.")

Ich sehe nicht viel fern, aber wenn etwas Gutes kommt, schalte ich doch ein. ("I don't watch much TV, but I

do tune in if something good comes on.")

Aber, when not used as a conjunction, is very similar to doch. It conveys a meaning of disagreement to apreviously-stated assertion.

Du sprichst aber schon gut Deutsch! ("On the contrary, you speak very good German!")

Sowieso, ohnehin or eh, meaning "anyway(s)", implies an emphasized assertion. Especially in the South, eh iscolloquially most common. All these can be enforced by a preceding doch.

Ich hab ihm eh gesagt, dass er sich wärmer anziehen soll. ("I told him to put on warmer clothes in the first

place.")

Das ist eh nicht wahr. ("That's not true anyway.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_and_no#Three-form_systems



Vielleicht, as a modal particle, is used for emphasis and should not be confused with the adverb vielleicht(meaning "perhaps"):

Das ist vielleicht ein großer Hund! ("That's quite a large dog!")

But:

Vielleicht ist das ein großer Hund. Es ist schwer zu erkennen. ("Maybe that's a large dog. It's difficult to

tell.")

Fei (which is no longer recognized as the adverb fein, finely) is a particle peculiar to Upper German dialects. Itdenotes that the speaker states something important that might be a surprise for the listener. To give an adequatetranslation even into Standard German is difficult; probably, the best try is to use understatements with strongaffirmative meaning. In English, translations to "I should think" or "just to mention" seem possible, varying fromcontext.

Des kôsch fei net macha! (Swabian) = Das kannst du (eigentlich wirklich) nicht machen. (You can't do

that! / If you do look at it, you really can't do that. / You can't, I should think, do that.)

I bin fei ned aus Preissen.! (Bavarian) = Ich bin, das wollte ich nur einmal anmerken, nicht aus Preußen.

(Just to mention, I'm not from Prussia.)

Wohl is often used instead of epistemic adverbs, such as vermutlich or wahrscheinlich. It also used to emphasizea strong disagreement. Literal translation with "probably" or at least with "seemingly" is possible.

Es wird wohl Regen geben. ("It looks like rain. / It's probably going to rain.")

Du bist wohl verrückt!. ("You must be out of your mind.")

*Note on mal: The colloquial shortening of einmal to mal is uncommon in the south and is considered a northern import; it is not

considered standard (while modal particles, as such, are).

References

Fabian Bross (2012): German modal particles and the common ground (http://helikon-

online.de/2012/Bross_Particles.pdf). In: Helikon. A Multidisciplinary Online Journal, 2. 182-209.

Hammer's German Grammar and Usage; revised by Martin Durrell; Edward Arnold, a division of Hodder

and Sloughton; ISBN 0-340-50128-6

Gordon Collier ; Brian Shields, Guided German-English translation: ein Handbuch für Studenten ISBN 3-

494-00896-5

Sérvulo Monteiro Resende, Die Wiedergabe der Abtönungspartikeln doch, ja, eben und halt im

Englischen auf der Grundlage literarischer Übersetzungen, Dissertation (1995)

External links

http://helikon-online.de/2012/Bross_Particles.pdf





Teaching German Modal Particles

(http://web.archive.org/web/20070220164308rn_1/llt.msu.edu/vol5num3/mollering/)

(German) canoonet "Die Partikeln"

(http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Adverb/Partikel/index.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_modal_particle&oldid=582396443"

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6/21/2014 German pronouns - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_pronouns 1/6

Personal pronouns

Standard English personal pronouns:

You | Thou | We | They | Them | It

Parts of speech:

Subjective

Possessive

Determinacy:

Dummy

Generic you

Singular they

Inclusive and exclusive we

Pluralis majestatis

T-V distinction

Gender issues:

Androgynous

Gender-specific

Gender-neutral

Spivak

Invented (ve, xe, ze, sie/hir)

Slang:

Y'all | Yinz

Other languages:

French, personal

German

Spanish

Portuguese

Chinese

Japanese

Vietnamese

German pronounsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German pronouns describe a set of German words with specificfunctions. As with other pronouns, they are frequently employed thesubject or object of a clause, acting as substitutes for nouns or nounphrases, but are also used in relative clauses to relate the main clauseto a subordinate one.

Contents

1 Classification and usage

2 Personal pronouns

3 Possessive pronouns

4 Pronouns derived from articles

5 Reflexive pronouns

6 Relative clause

7 Demonstrative pronouns

8 References

9 External links

Classification and usage

Germanic pronouns are divided into six groups;

Personal pronouns, which adverts an entity, such as the

speaker or third parties;

Possessive pronouns, which describe ownership of objects,

institutions, etc.;

Interrogative pronouns, which are used in questions, such as

who?;

Reflexive pronouns, in which the subject is also one of the

objects;

Relative pronouns, which connect clauses;

Indefinite pronouns, which denote entities of quantities.

The German personal pronouns must always have the same gender,same number, and same case as their antecedents. These rules apply for other pronouns, also.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/They

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(pronoun)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_(grammar)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_and_exclusive_we

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_majestatis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-V_distinction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Invented_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%27all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_personal_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_pronouns


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_(grammar)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_phrase


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrogative_pronoun


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_pronoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_pronoun



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_(linguistics)



In German, a pronoun may have a certain position in the sentence under special circumstances. First and secondperson pronouns usually do not, and they can be used anywhere in the sentence—except in certain poetical orinformal contexts.

"Das im Schrank" (the thing in the cupboard)

"Das auf dem Tisch" (the thing on the table)

There are also genitive direct objects. Since the personal pronoun does not have a genitive form, the genitive of thepossessive pronoun is applied in those cases. These forms are bracketed. The genitive object, other than accusativeor dative objects, is somewhat outdated:

OLD: "Ich erinnere mich ihrer" (MODERN: "Ich erinnere mich an sie.") (I remember her.)

OLD: "Ich erinnere mich seiner" (MODERN: "Ich erinnere mich an ihn.")

OLD: "Ich entsinne mich ihrer" (MODERN: "Ich erinnere mich an sie.")

In Modern German, "erinnern" rather takes the prepositional phrase with the preposition an. However, some verbscannot be constructed otherwise, and thus genitive objects remain common language to some degree. This is truefor "entsinnen" (which is archaic in itself), but also for sentences such as:

OLD AND MODERN: "Laßt uns der Opfer des Marxismus, Faschismus, und Nationalsozialismus

gedenken." (Let us commemorate the victims of Marxism, Fascism, and National Socialism.)

OLD AND MODERN: "Ich klage Herrn Max Mustermann des Mordes an." (I accuse Mr. Thomas Atkins

of murder.)

The two noun and pronoun emphasizers "selber" and "selbst" have slightly different meanings than if used withnominal phrases. They normally emphasize the pronoun, but if they are applied to a reflexive pronoun (in theobjective case), they emphasize its reflexive meaning.

Personal pronouns



Singular PluralFormal (singular

and plural)

CaseFirst

Person

Second

PersonThird Person

First

Person

Second

Person

Third

PersonSecond Person

(Englishnominative)

I you he shenull /

itwe you they you

Nominative

(subject)ich du er sie es wir ihr sie Sie

Accusative (direct

object)mich dich ihn sie es uns euch sie Sie

Dative (indirectobject)

mir dir ihm ihr ihm uns euch ihnen Ihnen

Genitive meiner deiner seiner ihrer seiner unser euer ihrer Ihrer

The verbs following the formal form of "you"—"Sie"—are conjugated identically as in the first- or third-personplurals. For example, "Sie sprechen Deutsch." This means either "You speak German" or "They speak German",and it is completely up to the context to determine which one it is.

"Ich rufe den Hund"—"Ich rufe ihn" (I am calling the dog—I am calling it. Literally: I am calling him.)

Genitive personal pronouns (which are themselves rather the borrowed genitive forms from the possessivepronouns) never indicate possession, which is not only outdated but wrong. That is, my book translates to "meinBuch", or "das Buch von mir" (the latter would be quite identical to the book of me); and never "das Buch meiner".These pronouns may be used for the genitive object ("gedenke meiner": commemorate me). Archaically, theunflected possessive pronoun can be used instead, e.g. Vergißmeinnicht (instead of: "vergiß meiner nicht" or—vergessen takes the accusative as well—"vergiss mich nicht" in more modern form). Another place where they areused is after prepositions requiring the genitive case, e.g. "seitens meiner" ("on my part", more typically"meinerseits"). However, many of these prepositions can anyway, at least in more colloquial usage, be constructedwith the dative, which however is no personal pronoun issue (e.g. "statt mir" instead of "statt meiner"). Ironically, theBavarian dialect never uses wegen (because of), which in Standard German must take the genitive, otherwise thanwith a dative, with the very one exception of personal pronouns, where "wegen meiner" (as indicating "von mir aus",if you bother what I will think about it, it's all right) is not altogether unknown.

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns are formed by adding endings to the genitive case of the personal pronoun, eventuallystripping it of its genetive ending. The endings are identical to those of the indefinite article ein.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forget-me-not



Uninflected forms

sg. msc./ntr. sg. fem. pl. courtesy

1st person mein mein unser

2nd person dein dein euer Ihr

3rd person sein ihr ihr

Example: mein (my)

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plurals

Nominative mein meine mein meine

Accusative meinen meine mein meine

Dative meinem meiner meinem meinen

Genitive meines meiner meines meiner

Pronouns derived from articles

To replace a nominal by a pronoun that is derived from an article, the declined form corresponding to the gender,case, and number of the nominal phrase is used.

Although the pronoun form and the article form are the same in most cases, there are sometimes differences.

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Nominative der die das die

Accusative den die das die

Dative dem der dem den

Genitive des der des der

Reflexive pronouns

There are also reflexive pronouns for the dative case and the accusative case. In the first and second person, theyare the same as the normal pronouns, but they only become visible in the third person singular and plural. The thirdperson reflexive pronoun for both plural and singular is: "sich":

"Er liebt sich". (He loves himself.)

"Sie verstecken sich". (They hide themselves.)

Reflexive pronouns can be used not only for personal pronouns:

"Sie hat sich ein Bild gekauft." (She bought herself a picture.)

"Seiner ist schon kaputt." (His is already broken.)







Relative clause

A pronoun contains, or rather, has a relative clause, if there is ever a further meaning to express behind thepronoun, that is to say, some more clarification necessary. The relative pronouns are as follows:

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Nominative der die das die

Accusative den die das die

Dative dem der dem denen

Genitive dessen deren dessen deren

Instead, welcher/e/es may be used, which is seen to be more formal, and only common in interdependent multi-relative clauses, or as a mnemonic to German pupils to learn to distinguish das from dass (it is the first of these ifyou can say dieses, jenes or welches instead). The relative pronoun is never omitted in German. On the other hand,in English, the phrase

The young woman I invited for coffee yesterday is my cousin's fiancée.

completely omits the use of a relative pronoun. (The use of the relative pronouns "who" or "that" is optional insentences like these.) To state such a thing in German, one would say

Die junge Frau, die ich gestern zum Kaffee eingeladen habe, ist die Verlobte meines Cousins.

Note that the conjugated verb is placed at the end of German relative clauses. This was the preferable use in Latinsentences as well as in Old High German even for main clauses, and remains intact for subclauses, whereas in mainclauses the verb takes the second place. (Exceptions: jokes begin with the verb: "Treffen sich zwei Freunde.Kommt einer nicht." which might be translated in a way such as this: Meeting two friends. Coming one fails todo. In family event lyrics, the old custom may be revived for the sake of forced rhyme, e.g. "Mein Onkel ist derbeste Mann / und ich dies auch begründen kann." My uncle is right best a man / a thing that really prove Ican.)

Likewise, an English participle such as

The man coming round the corner is a thief.

is best translated to a relative clause, e.g.

Der Mann, der gerade um die Ecke kommt, ist ein Dieb.

However, it might be translated literally which would result in what some call a very German sentence, e.g.

Der gerade um die Ecke kommende Mann ist ein Dieb.

(See relative clauses).

Demonstrative pronouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar#Relative_clause



Demonstrative pronouns are used to refer to something already defined.

jener, e, es (that, the former)dieser, e, es (this, the latter) (or "dies" as abbreviation for dieses)ersterer, e, es (the former) letzterer, e, es (the latter)

all declined like adjectives (if "ersterer" or "letzterer" take the definite article, they are consequently weakly

declined, "der erstere" etc.)

derjenige, diejenige, dasjenige (the one)

Declined like [def. art] + [jenig-] + weak adj. ending

Used to identify a noun to be further identified in a relative clause.

derselbe, dieselbe, dasselbe (the same)

Declined like [def. art] + [selb-] + weak adj. ending

Used to indicate an identity stronger than der gleiche ("the equal") would, however, the derselbe / der

gleiche distinction is rather nuanced, not usually insisted upon and, if so, rather complicated for native

speakers.

References

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_pronouns&oldid=610433984"

Categories: Pronouns Pronouns by language German grammar


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6/21/2014 German verbs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_verbs 1/20

German verbsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowelgradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroupsand anomalies do arise. The only completely irregular verb in the language is sein (to be). However, textbooks forforeign learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are fewer than 200 strong and irregular verbs, andthere is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

As German is a Germanic language, the German verb can be understood historically as a development of theGermanic verb.

Contents

1 Simple infinitives

2 German prefixes

2.1 Inseparable prefixes

2.2 Separable prefixes

3 Complex infinitives

3.1 Components and word order

3.1.1 Predicative nouns and predicative adjectives

3.1.2 Adverbs

3.2 Compound infinitives

3.2.1 Passive infinitive

3.2.2 Perfect infinitives

3.2.3 Future infinitives

3.2.4 Infinitives with modal verbs

3.2.5 Accusativus cum infinitivo

3.3 The Infinitive with zu

4 Conjugation

4.1 Auxiliary verbs

4.2 Modal verbs

4.3 Dative verbs

4.4 Reflexive verbs

4.5 Imperative conjugation

5 Verbal nouns and verbal adjectives

5.1 Past participle

5.2 Present participle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_consonant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_ablaut


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregular_verb


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_verb



5.3 Future participle or gerundive

5.4 Agent nouns

5.5 Gerund

6 Tenses

7 Colloquial contractions between verb and personal pronoun

8 References

9 External links

Simple infinitives

The infinitive consists of the root and the suffix -en. With verbs whose roots end in el or er, the e of the infinitive suffixis dropped.

laufen ("to run")

lächeln ("to smile")

meistern ("to master")

German prefixes

This is a general view of the most important German prefixes. The example is "legen" (to lay)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive



Prefix Verb Literally Translation

ab- legen to lay downto lay down

to abandon sth.

an- legen to lay by/atto attach sth.

to dock

auf- legen to lay up to apply

aus- legen to lay out to lay sth. out

be- legen to lay sth. on sth. to overlay

bei- legen to lay at/by to add

dar- legen to lay there to point sth. out

ein- legen to lay in to inlay

entlegen dis-layfaraway, outlying

NOTE: entlegen is an adjective and not a verb!

er- legen to achieve-lay to kill/ to conclude successfully

gelegen to be laidseated, situated, opportune

NOTE: gelegen is an adjective and not a verb!

hin- legen to lay there to put down

nach- legen to lay after to put some more of sth. on

nieder- legen to lay down

to put down an object /

to lay down an office /

to lie down also: to go to sleep

über- legen to lay over to think about sth.

um- legen to lay around/over again to allocate, also: to kill

unter- legen to lay under to put under

verlegen –to be shy [adjective] / to lose [verb]

to edit (books, newspaper)

vor- legen to lay previous to sth. to bring sth. before so.

weg- legen to lay away to put away

wider- legen to lay against to disprove

zer- legen to lay sth. in pieces to dismantle

zu- legen to lay to sth. to put on / to buy something new

zusammen- legen to lay together to pool sth.

Inseparable prefixes

There are some verbs which have a permanent prefix at their beginning. The most common permanent prefixes foundin German are ver-, ge-, be-, er-, ent- (or emp-), and zer-.



brauchen, "to need" – verbrauchen, "to consume" or "to use up"

raten, "to advise", "to guess" – verraten, "to betray"

fallen, "to fall" – gefallen "to be pleasing"

hören, "to hear" – gehören zu "to belong to"

brennen, "to burn" (intransitive) – verbrennen, "to burn" (transitive), to burn completely

beginnen, "to begin" (no form without the prefix)

The meaning of the permanent prefixes does not have a real system; the alteration in meaning can be subtle or drastic.The prefixes ver-, be- and ge- have several different meanings, although ge- is uncommon and often the root verb isno longer in existence. be- often makes a transitive verb from an intransitive verb. Verbs with er- tend to relate tocreative processes, verbs with ent- usually describe processes of removing (as well as emp-, an approximateequivalent to ent- except usually used for root verbs beginning with an f), and zer- is used for destructive actions.Ver- often describes some kind of extreme or excess of the root verb, although not in any systematic way: 'sprechen',for example means to 'speak', but 'versprechen', 'to promise' as in 'to give ones word' and 'fallen', meaning 'to fall' but'verfallen', 'to decay' or 'to be ruined'.

Separable prefixes

Many verbs have a separable prefix that changes the meaning of the root verb, but that does not always remainattached to the root verb. German sentence structure normally places verbs in second position or final position. Forseparable prefix verbs, the prefix always appears in final position. If a particular sentence's structure places the entireverb in final position then the prefix and root verb appear together. If a sentence places the verb in second positionthen only the root verb will appear in second position. The separated prefix remains at the end of the sentence.

anfangen ("to start")

1. Root verb in second position: Ich fange mit der Arbeit an. ("I start the work.")

2. Root verb in final position: Morgens trinke ich Schokolade, weil ich dann mit der Arbeit anfange. ("In

the mornings I drink hot chocolate, because afterwards I begin the work.")

A small number of verbs have a prefix that is separable in some uses and inseparable in others.

umfahren

1. ("to crash into sth.") – (stress on um)

Ich fahre das Verkehrszeichen um. "I drive against the traffic sign, knocking it over (um) in the process."

2. ("to drive around") – (stress on fahr)

Ich umfahre das Verkehrszeichen. "I drive around the traffic sign."

If one of the two meanings is figurative, the inseparable version stands for this figurative meaning:

übersetzen

1. Literal ("to ferry") – (stress on über)

Ich setze morgen auf die Insel über "I'll ferry over to the island tomorrow."



2. Figurative ("to translate") – (stress on setzen)

Ich übersetze die Geschichte morgen. "I'll translate the story tomorrow."

Complex infinitives

Components and word order

Complex infinitives can be built, consisting of more than the original infinitive. They include objects, predicative nounsand adverbial information. These are packed before the original infinitive, if used isolated. (elliptical)

If you want to express that you suddenly see a bird (not an airplane);

NOT einen Vogel am Himmel plötzlich sehen ("suddenly see a bird in the sky," as opposed to seeing it

slowly - "plötzlich" is stressed)

BUT plötzlich einen Vogel am Himmel sehen ("suddenly see a bird in the sky," as opposed to seeing a plane

- "Vogel" is stressed)

Both sentences are correct but they have different focus.

Pronoun objects are usually mentioned before nominal phrase objects; dative nominal objects before accusativenominal objects; and accusative pronoun objects before dative pronouns. Order may change upon emphasis on theobject, the first being more important. This can be viewed as a table:

Usual object order

Type Order Case

Pronoun 1 Accusative

Pronoun 2 Dative

Nominal 3 Dative

Nominal 4 Accusative

normal

Ich gebe meinem Vater das Geld ("I give my father the money")

Ich gebe es ihm ("I give it to him")

Ich gebe ihm das Geld ("I give him the money")

Ich gebe es meinem Vater ("I give it to my father")

unusual

Ich gebe das Geld meinem Vater ("I give the money to my father")

Ich gebe das Geld ihm ("I give the money to him")

very strange (but still correct)

Ich gebe ihm es ("I give him it")

Ich gebe meinem Vater es ("I give my father it")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_phrase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative



Native adverbs, like nicht, leider or gerne, are placed before the innermost verb (see Compound infinitives).

Predicative nouns and predicative adjectives

A predicative adjective can be the positive, comparative or superlative stem of an adjective, therefore it has the sameform as the adverb. One might also use positional phrases or pronominal adverbs.

rot sein ("be red")

bekannt werden ("become well-known")

im Rathaus sein ("be in the town hall")

A predicative noun is a nominal phrase in the nominative case.

Ein Arzt sein ("be a doctor")

Note that, if the subject is singular, the predicative noun must not be plural.

Der Schwarm ist eine Plage (singular/singular) ("the swarm is a pest")

Die Bienen sind Insekten (plural/plural) ("the bees are insects")

Die Bienen sind der Schwarm (plural/singular) ("the bees are the swarm")

*Der Schwarm ist die Bienen (singular/plural)

but instead Der Schwarm ist ein Haufen Bienen ("the swarm is a load of bees")

or Die Bienen sind der Schwarm ("the bees are the swarm") (inversion)

3rd person pronouns are handled like any nominal phrase when used in a predicative way.

1st person or 2nd person pronouns are never used as predicative pronouns.

Normally, one makes an inversion when using a definite pronoun as predicativum.

Der bin ich. (*Ich bin der.) ("I'm the one")

Der bist du. (*Du bist der.) ("You're the one")

Der ist es. (*Es ist der.) ("He's the one")

Adverbs

One can use any kind of adverbial phrase or native adverb mentioned above. But beware of modal verbs, theychange the meaning and phrase of the sentence.

Compound infinitives

Compound infinitives can be constructed by the usage of modal verbs or auxiliary verbs. One places a new infinitivebehind the main infinitive. Then this outer infinitive will be conjugated instead of the old inner infinitive. Sometimesone must turn the old infinitive into a passive participle.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_(linguistics)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_infinitive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_verb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice



Passive infinitive

There are two types of passive forms: static passive and dynamic passive. They differ by their auxiliary words. Thestatic passive uses sein, the dynamic passive is formed with werden (which has a slightly different conjugation from itssiblings). In both cases, the old infinitive is turned into its passive participle form.

sehen – gesehen sein – gesehen werden ("see – be seen")

plötzlich am Himmel gesehen sein/werden ("suddenly be seen in the sky")

Note that a complex infinitive cannot be turned into passive form, with an accusative object, for obvious reasons. Thisrestriction does not hold for dative objects.

mir den Schlüssel geben ("to give me the key")

NOT mir den Schlüssel gegeben werden

mir gegeben werden ("have been given to me")

The only exceptions are verbs with two accusative objects. In older forms of German, one of these accusativeobjects was a dative object. This dative object is removed, whereas the real accusative object stays.

Die Schüler die Vokabeln abfragen ("test the students on their vocab")

NOT Die Schüler abgefragt werden

Die Vokabeln abgefragt werden ("the vocab be tested")

Perfect infinitives

The perfect infinitive is constructed by turning the old infinitive into the passive participle form and attaching theauxiliary verbs haben or sein after the verb.

sehen – gesehen haben (transitive) ("see" – "saw/have seen")

einen Vogel sehen – einen Vogel gesehen haben (transitive) ("see a bird –" "saw/have seen a bird")

laufen – gelaufen sein (intransitive) ("walk – walked/have walked")

einen schnellen Schritt laufen – einen schnellen Schritt gelaufen sein/haben ("walk at a fast pace" –

"walked/have walked at a fast pace")

Note that the perfect infinitive of an intransitive verb is created the same way as the static passive infinitive of atransitive verb.

One can also build perfect infinitives of passive infinitives, both static and dynamic. Since the passive is intransitive,having no accusative object, one must use the auxiliary sein:

sehen ("to see")

gesehen worden sein ("to have been seen")

gesehen geworden sein ("to have been being seen")

sein is used as an auxiliary verb, when the verb is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_participle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb



intransitive,

indicates a movement from one place to another, or

describes the alteration of a state

haben is used, when

actually any other case, but could be described more specifically

The use of haben and sein may depend on a sentence's meaning. I have driven the car (Ich habe das Autogefahren.) is transitive and takes haben, but I have driven to Germany (Ich bin nach Deutschland gefahren.) isintransitive and takes sein because of the position change, even though the verb, fahren, is identical.

Future infinitives

The future infinitive is more theoretical, because this infinite is only used in finite form. One keeps the old infinitive andappends the verb werden, which in the present tense means 'to become'.

nach Italien fahren – nach Italien fahren werden ("to drive to Italy" – "to be about to drive to Italy")

The future infinitive can also be built by a perfect infinitive, which is used in the future perfect.

den Baum gefällt haben – den Baum gefällt haben werden ("to have felled the tree" – "to be about to have

felled the tree")

Infinitives with modal verbs

Modal verbs are verbs that modify other verbs, and as such, are never found alone. Examples may include thefollowing: "may", "must", "should", "want", or "can". Such verbs are utilized by placing the modal infinitive behind theold (passive or perfect) infinitive, without changing any other word. Some modal verbs in German are: können,dürfen, müssen, brauchen, wollen, mögen, lassen.

dorthin fahren können ("to be able to drive there")

nach Rom fahren lassen ("let someone drive to Rome")

A common misunderstanding among English-speakers learning German is caused by a divergence in meaningbetween English must and German müssen.

Ich muss: "I must"

Ich muss nicht: "I don't have to.

Accusativus cum infinitivo

Similar to Latin, there is an accusative and infinitive (ACI) construction possible. To construct it, one places a certaininfinitive behind the last infinitive, then adds an accusative object before the inner complex infinitive. This can be donein two ways:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive



Simple ACI

Subject – Verb – Object – Infinitive: "Ich sehe dich stolzieren" I see you strutting

Complex ACI

Subject – Verb – Object – Compound infinitive: "Ich lasse dich ein Haus bauen" I let you build a

house

The Infinitive with zu

The infinitive with zu has nothing to do with the gerundive, although it is created in a similar way. One simply puts theword zu before the infinitive, perhaps before the permanent prefix, but after the separable prefix.

zu lesen ("to read")

Ich lerne zu lesen ("I learn to read")

zu verlassen ("to leave")

Ich habe beschlossen, dich zu verlassen ("I've decided to leave you")

wegzuwerfen ("to throw away")

Ich habe beschlossen, das Buch wegzuwerfen ("I've decided to throw away the book")

The infinitive with zu extended with um expresses purpose (in order to...). The subject of the main clause and theverb in the infinitive must be identical.

Ich habe ein Meer überquert, um dich zu treffen – "I have crossed an ocean to meet you."

Conjugation

There are three persons, two numbers and four moods (indicative, conditional, imperative and subjunctive) toconsider in conjugation. There are six tenses in German: the present and past are conjugated, and there are fourcompound tenses. There are two categories of verbs in German: weak and strong. Some grammars use the termmixed verbs to refer to weak verbs with irregularities. For a historical perspective on German verbs, see Germanicweak verb and Germanic strong verb.

Below, the weak verb kaufen 'to buy' and the strong verb singen "to sing" are conjugated.

Weak verbs Strong verbs

Present Past Present Past

ich kaufe kaufte singe sang

du kaufst kauftest singst sangst

er kauft kaufte singt sang

wir kaufen kauften singen sangen

ihr kauft kauftet singt sangt

sie kaufen kauften singen sangen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indicative_mood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_mood


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_weak_verb




Conditional endings (except for sein "to be")

All tenses and verbs: -e, -est, -t, -en, -et, -en

sein "to be" is irregular in the conditional mood

Present conditional: sei, seist, sei, seien, sei(e)t, seien

Past conditional: wäre, wärst, wäre, wären, wär(e)t, wären

The (e)s are inserted when the stem of the verb ends in:

-chn -d, -dn, -fn, -gn, -t, -tm

The second person singular ending is -t for verbs whose stems end in:

-s, -ß, -x, -z

Examples

beten "to pray": weak transitive verb

Past Participle: gebetet

Present: bete, betest, betet, beten, betet, beten

Past: betete, betetest, betete, beteten, betetet, beteten

singen "to sing": strong transitive verb

Past Participle: gesungen

Present: singe, singst, singt, singen, singt, singen

Past: sang, sangst, sang, sangen, sangt, sangen

Some strong verbs change their stem vowel in the second and third person singular of the indicative mood of thepresent tense.

lesen "to read": strong transitive verb

Past Participle: gelesen

Present: lese, liest, liest, lesen, lest, lesen

Past: las, last, las, lasen, last, lasen

The other tenses are described in the Sentences section, because they include construction of sentences.

Auxiliary verbs

werden "to become" (strong)



Present Past

ich werde wurde

du wirst wurdest

er wird wurde

wir werden wurden

ihr werdet wurdet

sie werden wurden

Past participle: geworden

haben "to have" (mixed)

Compare the archaic English conjugation:

Present Past Present Past

ich habe hatte I have had

du hast hattest thou hast hadst

er hat hatte he hath had

wir haben hatten we have had

ihr habt hattet ye have had

sie haben hatten they have had

Past participle: gehabt

sein "to be" (strong)

Present Past

ich bin war

du bist warst

er ist war

wir sind waren

ihr seid wart

sie sind waren

Past participle: gewesen

Modal verbs

müssen "to be required; must"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English



sollen "to be supposed to; should"

wollen "to want (with resolve)"

mögen "to like"

können "to be able; can; to be possible"

dürfen "to be allowed; may"

Modal verbs are inflected irregularly. In the present tense, they use the preterite endings of the strong verbs. In thepast tense, they use the preterite endings of the weak verbs. In addition, most modal verbs have a change of vowel inthe singular.

müssen sollen wollen mögen können dürfen

Present Past Present Past Present Past Present Past Present Past Present Past

ich muss musste soll sollte will wollte mag mochte kann konnte darf durfte

du musst musstest sollst solltest willst wolltest magst mochtest kannst konntest darfst durftest

er muss musste soll sollte will wollte mag mochte kann konnte darf durfte

wir müssen mussten sollen sollten wollen wollten mögen mochten können konnten dürfen durften

ihr müsst musstet sollt solltet wollt wolltet mögt mochtet könnt konntet dürft durftet

sie müssen mussten sollen sollten wollen wollten mögen mochten können konnten dürfen durften

When a modal verb is in use, the main verb is moved to the end of the sentence.

For example:

Ich kann das Auto fahren. ("I can drive the car.") Ich soll die Karten kaufen. ("I'm supposed to buy the cards.") Ermuss der Mutter danken. ("He must thank the mother.") Note: danken is a dative verb which is why die Mutterbecomes der Mutter. For further information, please read the section about Dative verbs.

Dative verbs

Some verbs are dative verbs. When used, these verbs change the case of the direct object to dative. Many have incommon that they change the direct object. Dative verbs include (but are not limited to):

antworten

danken

folgen

geben

gefallen

glauben

gratulieren

helfen

passen



vertrauen

verzeihen

Reflexive verbs

Some verbs require the use of a reflexive pronoun. These verbs are known as reflexive verbs. In English, these areoften slightly modified versions of non-reflexive verbs, such as "to sit oneself down".

Imperative conjugation

There is an imperative for second person singular and second person plural, as well as for first person plural andsecond person formal.

The endings for second person singular informal are: -(e), -el or -le, and -er(e).

The endings for second person plural informal are: -(e)t, -elt, and -ert.

Fahren (wir/Sie)! – Fahr(e)! – Fahrt!

The imperative of first person plural and second person formal is identical to the infinitive.

This subtopic is strongly related to the construction of German sentences.

Verbal nouns and verbal adjectives

This section details the construction of verbal nouns and verbal adjectives from the main infinitive. The processes arethe same both for simple and complex infinitives. For complex infinitives, adverbial phrases and object phrases areignored, they do not affect this process; except something else is mentioned.

Past participle

There are some irregularities when creating the past participle form.

Weak verbs form their past participles with ge- plus the third person singular form of the verb.

fragen (er fragt) → gefragt

passen (es passt) → gepasst

antworten (er antwortet) → geantwortet

hören (er hört) → gehört

fühlen (er fühlt) → gefühlt

Verbs with non-initial stress (practically always the result of an unstressed inseparable prefix, or foreign words endingin stressed -ieren or -eien) do not have ge- added to the verb.

verführen (er verführt) → verführt

miauen (er miaut) → miaut


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_sentence_structure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_adjective



probieren (er probiert) → probiert

prophezeien (er prophezeit) → prophezeit

For irregular verbs, the infinitive ending -en remains.

gelaufen

gegeben

gegangen

geworfen

The separable prefix remains in place.

weggetragen

umverteilt

NOTE Ich habe den Baum umgefahren (I drove over – crashed into – the tree)

NOTE Ich habe den Baum umfahren (I drove around the tree)

The past participles of modal and auxiliary verbs have the same form as their infinitives. But if these verbs are usedalone, without an infinitive, they have a regular participle.

Ich habe den Chef besuchen dürfen (Chef = boss) (I was allowed to see the boss)

Ich habe zum Chef gedurft (unusual) (I was allowed in to the boss)

Present participle

To create the basic form of a present participle, you attach the suffix -d to the infinitive of the verb.

laufen – laufend ("walk" – "walking")

töpfern – töpfernd ("make pottery" – "making pottery")

lächeln – lächelnd ("smile" – "smiling")

verraten – verratend ("betray" – "betraying")

aufbauen – aufbauend ("establish" – "establishing")

Future participle or gerundive

A gerundive-like construction is fairly complicated to use. The basic form is created by putting the word zu before theinfinitive. This is also the adverb.

zu suchen ("to be looked for")

Der Schlüssel ist zu suchen ("the key needs to be looked for")

zu verzeichnen ("to be recorded")

Ein Trend ist zu verzeichnen ("A trend is to be recorded")



The adjective is more complicated. Instead of the infinitive, one uses the present participle, and then declines itcorresponding to gender, number, case and article of the nominal phrase. (Compare the German declension ofadjectives.)

Der zu suchende Schlüssel ("the key to be looked for")

Ein zu lüftendes Geheimnis ("a secret to be revealed")

Agent nouns

Agent nouns (e.g. photographer from photograph in English) are constructed by taking the infinitive, removing theending and replacing it by -er, -ler or -er(er). If the person is a woman, the endings have an extra -in on them. Notethat in the feminine form a second syllable er is omitted, if the infinitive ends on ern or eren.

infinitive: fahren "to drive"

agent noun, masculine: Der Fahrer "the (male) driver"

agent noun, feminine: Die Fahrerin "the (female) driver"

infinitive: tischlern "to join (carpentry)"

agent noun, masculine: Der Tischler "the (male) joiner"

agent noun, feminine: Die Tischlerin "the (female) joiner"

infinitive: verweigern "to refuse"

agent noun, masculine: Der Verweigerer "the (male) refuser"

agent noun, feminine: Die Verweigerin "the (female) refuser"

This form is hard to build for complex infinitives, therefore it is unusual:

infinitive: weggehen "to go away"

does not usually become der Weggeher or die Weggeherin, but instead Derjenige, der weggeht ("the one

going away")

or even

infinitive: schnell zum Flughafen fahren um die Maschine noch zu erwischen ("to quickly drive to the

airport to just catch the flight")

does not usually become: Der Schnell-zum-Flughafen-um-die-Maschine-noch-zu-erwischen-Fahrer ("the

quickly-driving-to-the-airport-to-catch-the-flight-driver")

On the other hand, this form is often used in fun or mocking expressions, because the imputed behaviour that iscontent of the mocking can be merged into a single word. Examples are: Toiletten-Tief-Taucher ("toilet deep diver",which is an alliteration in German), or Mutterficker ("motherfucker"). A whole range of these expressions aim atsupposedly weak or conformist behaviour, such as Ampel-bei-Rot-Stehenbleiber ("traffic-lights-on-red-stopper"),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declension

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_noun



Warmduscher ("warm-showerer"), Unterhosen-Wechsler ("underpants changer"), or Schattenparker ("in theshadow parker"). Especially among children there are several fixed terms of this type, like Spielverderber ("gamespoiler").

Gerund

The normal gerund noun is generally the same word as the infinitive. The gerund does not have a plural (normally –but if so, the form would be unchanged), and its gender is neuter.

arbeiten – das Arbeiten ("to work" – "working")

NOTE die Arbeiten is not the feminine plural of the gerund Arbeiten,

it is the plural of Die Arbeit.

Example for the plural

"Das Verlegen" kann verschiedene Bedeutungen haben: Das Verlegen einer Sache (die man dann nicht

mehr findet); das Verlegen eines Veranstaltungsortes; das Verlegen einer Zeitung; etc.. Diese

verschiedenen "Verlegen" sind ein gutes Beispiel für den Plural des Gerunds.

"'Das Verlegen' can have different meanings: The misplacing of a thing (which you won't find then anymore);

the moving of an event location; the editing of a newspaper; etc. These different 'Verlegen' are a good example

of the gerund's plural."

There is another kind of gerund that (sometimes) implies disapproval of the action. The grammatically dependentimplication (i.e. independent of context, speech and syntax) of disapproval for this type of gerund is rather weak,though present. It must be supported either by context or speech. On the other hand, any positive implication fromthe context or speech will free the gerund from any disapproval. The ending of this form is -erei (-lerei or -(er)ei). Itsplural is built with -en, and its gender is feminine.

arbeiten – die Arbeiterei ("to work" – "this silly working")

laufen – die Lauferei ("to run" – "this silly running")

streiten – die Streiterei(en) ("to argue" – "this/these silly argument(s)")

schlemmen – die Schlemmerei(en) ("to feast" – "the feasting(s)")

malen – die Malerei(en) ("to draw" – "this/these silly drawing(s)")

The above form means a loose, vague abstractum of the verb's meaning. It is also often used to designate a wholetrade, discipline or industry, or a single business/enterprise:

die Meierei – (once) "a milk-processing enterprise"

malen – die Malerei ("to draw" – "the drawing" (as an artwork), "the discipline of drawing")

In this form the plural is used just as with any other noun. Cf. also Metzgerei, Fleischerei (butcher's establishment),Malerei (a business of professional painters (of rooms and buildings)) which do not spring from verbs.



Similar to the form presented above, one may place the prefix ge- (after the separable prefix), if the verb doesn't havea permanent prefix, and then attach the ending -e ( -el, -er ). Most times, this noun indicates slightly more disapprovalas the other one (depending in the same way on context, speech etc.). Its gender is neuter.

fahren – das Gefahre ("to drive" – "silly driving")

laufen – das Gelaufe ("running" – "silly running")

A plural form does not exist. To indicate the reference to all instances the pronoun/numeral all can be added, as in thefollowing example:

Mother to child: Hör mit dem Geschaukel auf! ("Stop that rocking.")

Child rocks in a different manner

Mother: Hör mit allem Geschaukel auf! ("Stop all rockings.")

However, a more formal reference to all instances would be "Hör mit jeder Form von Geschaukel auf!" ("Stopany form of rocking.") instead. So this use of all is merely encountered in colloquial conversations.

If this form of gerund is used to express disapproval, it is typically augmented by the prefix herum- or (short form)rum- to make it sound/look even more disapproving. For example: Das stundenlange Herumgefahre im Bus gehtmir total auf die Nerven. ("The silly driving around for hours in the bus is totally getting on my nerves.")

These forms are hard to build for complex infinitives; therefore they are unusual. When they occur, all object phrasesand adverbial phrases are put before the gerund noun:

von Allen gesehen werden – Das Von-Allen-gesehen-Werden ("to be seen by everyone" – "being seen by

everyone")

Tenses

Although there are six tenses in German, only two are simple; the others are compound and therefore build on thesimple constructions. The tenses are quite similar to English constructions.

Conjugation includes three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), three moods (indicative, imperative andsubjunctive), and two tenses (present and preterite). The subjunctive of the present is almost never used in colloquialGerman (and relatively unfrequent in written German as well); the subjunctive of the past is more common, at least forsome frequent verbs (ich wäre, ich hätte, ich käme etc.). The latter is used like a conditional mood in German(English: I would).

English native speakers should note that German tenses do not carry aspect information. There are no progressivetenses in standard German. Das Mädchen geht zur Schule may mean "The girl goes to school" as well as "The girl isgoing to school". One must use an adverb to make a visible difference aside from the context. In spoken German,there do exist progressive tenses, formed with the verb sein ("to be") + am ("at the") + verbal noun. For example: Ichbin am Essen. – I am eating; Ich bin das Auto am Reparieren. – I'm fixing the car. However, these forms are rarelyused in written and not used in formal spoken German (and are never obligatory in the colloquial either).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tense_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tense




A second kind of progressive tense is formed with the verb sein ("to be") + present participle, and is the literaltranslation of the English progressive tense (for present and past). For example: Ich bin/war essend. – I am/waseating; Ich bin/war das Auto reparierend. – I am/was fixing the car. In contrast to the former one, this progressivetense is a formal correct part of standard German, but, however, very uncommon in spoken as well as in written, incolloquial as well as in formal German – thus very uncommon at all. If used, it often may appear unwieldy orunnatural, except for specific usual cases. This form also differs from the other German tenses in that it has a veryunambiguous progressive aspect.

As is shown in the following, German is not very rigid in its usage of tenses. More precise tenses are available toexpress certain temporal nuances, but the two most common tenses (present tense and perfect tense) can often beused instead if the context is unambiguous.

Present (Präsens) – It is the present-conjugated form of the infinitive. It is the most important tense in German.

The Present tense is mainly used for simple present, present progressive, as well as for future. It is also used

for historical past.

Example: Ich kaufe das Auto. ("I buy the car")

Preterite (Präteritum) – It is the past-conjugated form of the infinitive. This past tense is mainly used in written

German and formal speech, except for some frequent verbs whose preterite forms are common colloquially

(such as ich war, ich hatte, ich kam). It is also used for past progressive. Otherwise the perfect is much

preferred in the colloquial.

Example: Ich kaufte das Auto. ("I bought the car")

Perfect (Perfekt) – It is the present-conjugated form of the perfect infinitive. This tense has (widely) the same

meaning as the preterite, and very often replaces the latter in colloquial German. An English perfect tense is

often expressed by the present in German. For example "I have lived in Germany for three years now." → Ich

lebe jetzt seit drei Jahren in Deutschland. (Literally: "I live now for three years in Germany.")

Example: Ich habe das Auto gekauft. ("I (have) bought the car")

Pluperfect / past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) – It is the past-conjugated form of the perfect infinitive. It can be

thought of the perfect form of the Preterite, used to describe what had already happened at a certain point in

the past. If the context is unambiguous, the perfect or preterite may be used instead (as in English).

Example: Ich hatte das Auto gekauft. ("I had bought the car")

Future (Futur I) – It is the present-conjugated form of the future infinitive. It generally describes the future, but

also expresses an assumption for the present. In contrast to English, the future tense is usually replaced by the

present tense if the future meaning is already evident from the context. For example "In ten years I'll be old" →

In zehn Jahren bin ich alt. (Literally: "In ten years am I old.") This is particularly common in colloquial

German, but also correct in writing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_tense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluperfect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_tense



Example: Ich werde das Auto kaufen. ("I will buy the car")

Future perfect (Futur II) – It is the present-conjugated form of the future infinitive of the perfect infinitive. It

describes what will have happened at a certain point in the future (past of the future), but the simple perfect, or

even present,[1] is preferred instead if the future meaning is evident from the context. More commonly, the

future perfect expresses an assumption for the past: Er wird einen Unfall gehabt haben. ("He will [probably]

have had an accident.")

Example: Ich werde das Auto gekauft haben. ("I'll have bought the car")

Colloquial contractions between verb and personal pronoun

Although not part of the standard language, nearly all varieties of colloquial German feature contracted forms in

which a verb and a following (unstressed) personal pronoun become one word. This is most frequent in the

2nd person singular, where the verb ending -st and the pronoun du ("you") are contracted into -ste [-stə].

bist du → biste ("are you")

hast du → haste ("have you")

glaubst du → glaubste ("believe you"/"do you believe")

These forms are not uncommonly seen also in informal writing. Regionally, there may be different outcomes of

the contraction. In western Germany, -t- is lost as well, resulting in bisse, hasse and the like. In Upper German

regions, the phenomenon often goes so far as to delete the pronoun completely, which gives rise to the Austro-

Bavarian bist, hast[2] and the Alemannic bisch, hasch.

Similar contractions exist for the formal 2nd person and the 3rd person plural (which both use the pronoun

sie/Sie).

können sie → könnse ("can you/she/they")

haben sie → hamse ("have you/she/they")

schauen sie → schaunse ("look you/she/they")

Again, shortened forms such as könn(en)s, hams are used in the South. They are often spelt können's, ham's

or können S', ham S' in informal writing.

In Upper and Central German regions (but only sporadically in originally Lower German areas), there are also

contracted forms for the 1st person plural. These usually end in -mer [-mɐ]. The reason for this is that the

Upper and Central German dialects have traditionally used mir instead of wir ("we"). This form mir is itself

due to an old contraction of the Middle High German verb ending -em and the following pronoun wir (e.g.

loufem wir → loufe‿mir)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_perfect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Bavarian_dialects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_dialects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-V_distinction#German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_German



sind wir → simmer ("are we")

haben wir → hammer ("have we")

glauben wir → glaub(e)mer ("believe we"/"do we believe")

In parts of northern Germany, less distinct contractions such as sindwer, hamwer occur instead of the

southern/central simmer, hammer.

References

Stern, Guy; and Bleiler, Everett F. Essential German Grammar, Dover Publ., 1961.

External links

Verb Conjugation Trainer by Wie Geht's German (http://www.wiegehtsgerman.com/conjugation_trainer)

German verb conjugation (http://www.die-konjugation.de/)

1. ^ and by a not incommon pupil mistake, Futur I, though that is universally judged incorrect.

2. ^ Note: the pronoun is not here deleted but attached to the verb with whose final sound it is identical. This is not by a

surprise: the very ending -st stems from the attachment of the pronoun du to the old verb ending -s. For example,

Old High German biris du became biristu and was then re-interpreted as birist du. (The same occurred in English

with the old pronoun thou.) Western German dialects and accents, however, still use the original simple -s. For

example, du bist is often pronounced du bis in the West.

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6/21/2014 German sentence structure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_sentence_structure 1/11

German sentence structureFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German sentence structure is somewhat more complex than that of many other European languages, but similarto Dutch, with phrases regularly inverted for both questions and subordinate phrases. Generally the main sentencestructure rule is that the conjugated verb is always the second element in a main clause or the last element in asubordinating clause. Verbs in the infinitive are generally placed after their respective object.

Contents

1 Main Sentence

1.1 Statement

1.1.1 Inversion

1.2 Questions

1.2.1 Yes/No questions

1.2.2 Asking for subject or object

1.2.3 Asking for a predicative

1.2.3.1 Asking for an adverbial

1.2.4 Asking for a possessor

1.2.5 Asking for an adverb

1.2.6 Asking for position or adverbial clause

1.3 Commands

2 Subordinate clauses

2.1 Subordinate sentence structure

2.2 Clauses with dass

2.3 Indirect questions with ob

2.4 Specific indirect question

2.5 Relative clauses

2.6 Adverbial clauses

Main Sentence

If a verb has a separable prefix, this prefix is moved to the end of the sentence.

Ich werde den Müll wegwerfen. ("I will throw away the rubbish.", literally "I will the rubbish away-throw.")

Ich werfe den Müll weg. (statement) ("I'm throwing away / I throw away the rubbish.", literally "I throw the

rubbish away.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separable_prefix



Werfe ich den Müll weg? (question) ("Am I throwing away the rubbish?", literally "Throw I the rubbish

away?")

Wirf den Müll weg! (command, familiar form) ("Throw away the rubbish!", literally "Throw the rubbish

away!")

Statement

A simple statement is constructed in the following manner: the subject comes first, then the conjugated verb, thenthe object and any infinitives or participles.

Ich + den Baum sehen -> Ich sehe den Baum.

("I + to see the tree" -> I see the tree.)

Ein Text + geschrieben werden -> Ein Text wird geschrieben

("A text + to be written -> A text is being written.")

Wir + den Raum verlassen -> Wir verlassen den Raum

("we + to leave the room -> We leave the room.")

Der König + eine Burg bauen lassen -> Der König lässt eine Burg bauen.

("the king + to have a castle built -> The king has a castle built.")

If the conjugated verb has a separable prefix, this prefix stays at the end of the sentence.

Ich + den Müll wegwerfen -> Ich werfe den Müll weg.

("I + to dispose of the trash -> I dispose of the trash.")

In addition, past participles in the perfect tenses fall at the end of the sentence, with the conjugated auxiliary verb(Hilfsverb) in the second position of the sentence.

Conventional German syntax presents information within a sentence in the following order:

Wichtigstes (what is the most important thing of the things following? *, **)

Was (what? the conjugated verb***)

Wer (who? the subject)

Wem (to/for whom - dative object)

Wann (when - time)

Warum (why - reason)

Wie (how - manner)

Wo (where - place)

Wen (whom - accusative object)



Wohin/Woher (to/from where)

Verb, nochmal (first part of the separable verb)

*The word "da" with the meaning "then suddenly" must take the first place. A "dann", then, does so often, but not necessarily;

otherwise, the Subject will do.

**If the verb is most important, the first part of the separable verb is placed here, but even then separated from the second part. If

the verb is not separable or periphrastical, the infinitive will do.

***and in this case, a form of "tun" is legitimately inserted for the conjugated verb, as in Arbeiten tun wir. "Working, that's what

we do."

Wir gehen am Freitag miteinander ins Kino. Literally,"We go on Friday together to the movies."

Wegen ihres Jahrestages bereiten wir unseren Eltern einen Ausflug nach München vor. Literally,We are planning for our parents today because of their anniversary a trip to Munich.

Comparisons can be put after both parts of the verb, or before the place of its later part. So:Er ist größer gewesen als ich. / Er war größer als ich. "He was greater than me."OREr ist größer als ich gewesen

Additionally, German often structures a sentence according to increasing news value. So:Wir gehen am Donnerstag ins Kino. We're going to the movies on Thursday. BUT

An welchem Tag gehen wir ins Kino? (On) What day are we going to the movies?

Am Donnerstag gehen wir ins Kino. OR Wir gehen am Donnerstag ins Kino. On Thursday we're going tothe movies. OR We're going on Thursday to the movies."

Additionally, when the accusative object is a pronoun, it moves in front of the dative object. Florian gibt mirmorgen das Buch. "Florian is giving me tomorrow the book." BUT Florian gibt es mir morgen. "Florian is givingit to me tomorrow."

Inversion

By an inversion you emphasize a component of the sentence: an adverbial phrase, a predicative or an object, oreven an inner verbal phrase. The subject phrase, at the beginning of an indicative unstressed sentence, is moveddirectly behind the conjugated verb, and the component to be emphasized is moved to the beginning of thesentence. The conjugated verb is always the second sentence element in indicative statements.

"Ich fliege schnell." - "I fly fast." - unstressed

"Schnell fliege ich." - "I fly fast." - stressed 'fast'

"Du bist wunderschön." - "You are lovely." - unstressed

"Wunderschön bist du." - "You are lovely." - stressed 'lovely'

"Ich bin gelaufen." - "I ran." - unstressed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separable_verb



"Gelaufen bin ich!" - "I ran!" - stressed 'ran'

Questions

Questions may be divided into yes/no questions, asking for the truthfulness of a statement, and specific questions,which ask for a concrete aspect of a statement.

Specific questions are similar to inverted statements. They begin with a question word, then there is the conjugatedverb, followed by the subject (if there is one), and the rest of the sentence follows.

Was machst du jetzt? ("What are you doing now?")

Wer geht ins Kino? ("Who is going to the cinema?" -- In this sentence, the interrogative pronoun wer serves

as the subject)

Yes/No questions

This kind of question is similar to the inversion: you put the inflected verb at the beginning of the (not inverted)sentence.

Du kommst. - Kommst du? ("You are coming - Are you coming?")

Ich habe geschlafen. - Habe ich geschlafen? ("I slept - Did I sleep?")

Ich werde das Spiel beenden. - Werde ich das Spiel beenden? ("I'm going to (lit. 'I will') finish the game -

Am I going to (lit. 'Will I') finish the game?")

Du wirfst den Torwart raus. - Wirfst du den Torwart raus? ("You are throwing the goalkeeper out - Are

you throwing the goalkeeper out?")

Asking for subject or object

In a normal question, you replace the subject phrase or object phrase with a corresponding interrogative pronoun,then move it to the beginning of the sentence, like an inversion. Theoretically, you must use the interrogativepronoun of welcher, welche, welches or a nominal phrase with the interrogative article.

Du hast deiner Frau einen Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a ring.")

- Welchen hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which one did you buy your wife?")

Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a red ring.")

- Welchen Ring hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which ring did you buy your wife?")


- Welchen Roten hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which red one did you buy your wife?")




- Welchen roten Ring hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("Which red ring did you buy your wife?")

But the usage of this pronoun implies that the speaker knows both the gender and number of the unknown object.So, practically, you replace these pronouns by short forms.

Du hast deiner Frau einen Ring gekauft. ("You bought your wife a ring.")

- Was hast du deiner Frau gekauft? ("What did you buy your wife?")

person thing

nominative wer was

genitive (object) wessen wessen

dative wem wem

accusative wen was

Regardless of whether you use the full pronoun or the short form, the genitive case is practically only used forgenitive objects. See Asking for a possessor.

Asking for a predicative

You ask for a predicative with the either interrogative pronoun Was or, if knowing it is not a nominal phrase, Wie.

Er ist schnell - Wie/Was ist er? ("He's fast - What is he?")

Ein Schmetterling ist ein Insekt - Was ist ein Schmetterling? ("A butterfly is an insect - What is a

butterfly?")

You can also use other interrogative pronouns like Wo.

Asking for an adverbial

It is possible to ask for the adverbial of a predicative, if it is not a nominal phrase (and even for the adverbial of theadverbial etc.)

Der Baum ist 3 Meter hoch.- Wie hoch ist der Baum? ("The tree is three metres tall - How tall is the

tree?")

Asking for a possessor

When searching for the possessor of a nominal phrase, you first act as if you would invert the correspondingstatement, placing the noun with the unknown possessor at the beginning. Then give it the possessive interrogativearticle (wessen for all cases, genders and numbers). Of course, this nominal phrase may not have a genitivepossessor.



Ich habe das Auto des Chefs gesehen. - Wessen Auto hast du gesehen? ("I saw the boss's car - Whose

car did you see?")

Ich habe sein Auto gesehen - Wessen Auto hast du gesehen? ("I saw his car - Whose car did you see?")

Ich habe sein Auto gesehen - Wessen hast du gesehen? ("I saw his car - Whose did you see?")

(Wessen is no longer an article, but a pronoun)

Usage is the same for both unknown possessive articles as for unknown genitive possessors.

Asking for an adverb

First the interrogative pronoun (Wie), then the conjugated verb, next the subject, then the rest of the sentence.

Der Vogel fliegt schnell am Himmel - Wie fliegt der Vogel am Himmel? ("The bird flies quickly in the

sky - How does the bird fly in the sky?")

If the adverb describes another adverb or an adjective:

Der Vogel fliegt ungeheuer schnell - Wie schnell fliegt der Vogel? ("The bird flies amazingly quickly -

How quickly does the bird fly?")

Asking for position or adverbial clause

Developing the question for an adverbial phrase may be slightly more complicated.

Theoretically, like the other specific questions, the unknown position is inverted to the beginning of the sentence.Whereas the pre- or postposition remains, the nominal part is replaced either by an interrogative pronoun or by anominal phrase having the interrogative article.

Er sah den Vogel auf dem Baum. - Auf welchem Baum sah er den Vogel? ("He saw the bird in the tree -

In which tree did he see the bird?")

Dein Hund wurde in diesem Jahr geboren. ("Your dog was born this year")

- In welchem Jahr wurde dein Hund geboren? ("Which year was your dog born?")

Practically, the person asking the question will know neither the gender of the noun, nor the number of the noun, noreven the kind of preposition, before he hears the answer. So a short form is used instead in nearly every case.These short forms are also the only way to ask for an adverbial clause or for a proposition.

Er sah den Vogel auf dem Baum. - Wo sah er den Vogel? ("He saw the bird in the tree - Where did he

see the bird?")

Dein Hund wurde damals geboren. - Wann wurde dein Hund geboren? ("Your dog was born at that

time - When was your dog born?")



Some interrogative pronouns: Wo, Woher, Wohin, Wann, Wieso, Weshalb, Warum, Weswegen.

Commands

For a command, take the imperative form of the conjugated verb from the infinitive and put it at the beginning of thesentence followed by the corresponding personal pronoun. There also must be an exclamation point at the end ofthe sentence to make it a command. The separable prefix, if there is one, remains at its old place, separated. In theliterary language it is possible to leave the verb at the second place.

If the verb changes the vowel in the second and third person singular, the vowel is also changed in the secondperson singular of the imperative.

The 2nd person plural pronoun is always omitted. In archaic language, or to emphasize who is ordered for theaction, the 2nd person singular pronoun may be left.

Das Tier verfolgen - Verfolge (du) das Tier! ("to trail the animal - Trail the animal!")

Das Tier verfolgen lassen - Lass(e) (du) das Tier verfolgen! ("to have the animal trailed - Have the animal

trailed!")

wegfahren - Fahr(e) (du) weg! ("to drive away - Drive away!")

jemanden mitnehmen - Nimm (du) jemanden mit! ("to give someone a lift - Give someone a lift!")

Note that an "'e"' may be added on to the end of the command form, but only if the verb does not have a stem-change. This is a result of the spoken language and has no difference in meaning. Schreib das Wort auf! means thesame as Schreibe das Wort auf! ("Write the word down!")

*Lese das Buch!, though very common in spoken language, is considered incorrect because the stem changes fromles to lies in the command form. Lies das Buch! ("Read the book!") (singular) and Lest das Buch! (plural) arecorrect.

There are no imperative forms for first person plural and second person formal. The first and third person plural ofthe conditional of the present (this is mostly the same form as the indicative aside from sein 'to be' for which seien isused) is used (but not for tun 'to do' for which tun is used). You must put it to beginning of the sentence, separatethe separable prefix before that, and place the personal pronouns wir or Sie directly after it.

wegfahren - Fahren wir weg! (Let's drive away!) - Fahren Sie weg! (You) Drive away!

froh sein - Seien wir froh! (Let's be glad!) - Seien Sie froh! Be glad!

Note that imperatives must have the same word order as yes/no questions.

Actual commands are often given as a simple unconjugated infinitive. This is inevitable in the military (excepting theformal commands Rührt euch and Richt't euch), but is not restricted to it.

In Linie antreten! (Line up! to soldiers) but also

Warm anziehen und den Schlüssel nicht vergessen! (Put some warm clothes on and do not forget your

key; a mother to her child)

Hey, nicht faulenzen, arbeiten! (Hey yo, do not laze around, get some work done!, normal imperative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_mood


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive



would be very odd)

The military command "Stillgestanden", Freeze!, oddly even takes the perfect participle for an imperative.

Subordinate clauses

A subordinate clause (Nebensatz) is always incorporated in a main sentence (or another subordinate clause). Anypart of the main clause can be replaced by it, but some conjugated verb must remain. However, subclauses aregenerally moved to the end of the sentence if it can be done without inconvenience, and if they do not take the firstplace because of importance. As for its word order, it differs in two things only from a main clause:

1. In general, it begins with a special word, a 'subordinating conjunction' or a relative pronoun, setting it into relationwith the encompassing sentence.2. The verb is, without separation, sent to the place where the first part of a separable verb would be in a mainclause, i. e. at the end of the sentence.

Ich nehme das frühere Flugzeug, damit ich heute noch ankomme. = "I'll take the earlier plane so that I

arrive even today."

Question words (in the following example, 'wohin') have the same effect as subordinating conjunctions within asentence.

Wohin ist er gelaufen? Niemand wusste, wohin er gelaufen ist. ("Where did he run (to)? No one knew wherehe ran (to)."—Note that, unlike in English, a subordinate or dependent clause is always separated from theindependent clause (Hauptsatz) by a comma.)

Oddities:

1. Final clauses can be replaced by an "um-zu"-infinitive, if the subject is identical; in practice, um behaves asconjunction, and the infinitive, with a zu, as conjugated verb, and the subject falls away.

Wir haben genug Geld, um diese CD zu kaufen. = Wir haben genug Geld, damit wir diese CD

kaufen. "We have enough money to/that we buy this CD."

2. In conditional phrases, the conjunction wenn may be left out in the main clause and the verb put into its place. Inthis case, so replaces dann in the subordinate clause.

Hast du genügend Geld, so no "dann" in this case kannst du diese CD kaufen. = Wenn du

genügend Geld hast, dann kannst du diese CD kaufen. "If you have enough money, then you can

buy this CD."

3. Indirect speech may behave as subclause in relation to the main clause, but the conjunction (which would be"dass") may be left out and then its word-order is as in main clauses.

Er sagte, er sei mit der Arbeit fertig. = Er sagte, dass er mit der Arbeit fertig sei. = "He said

(that) he had finished his work."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordinate_clause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separable_verb



4. Denn, by custom translated into English as for, is in practice just an equivalent to weil "because", but it requiresa main-clause word-order and may even take a semicolon instead of a comma.

Er kommt nicht zur Arbeit, denn er ist krank. (He doesn't come to work, for he's ill.) = Er kommt

nicht zur Arbeit, weil er krank ist. = "He doesn't come to work because he's ill."

To confuse things, in some dialects weil has the role which denn has in Standard German. However this doesn't mean they

generally neglect the subclause word order, since other conjunctions meaning the same, i. e. da "as" or even a "deswegen weil"

(literally: because of that because) take ordinary subclauses even there.

Subordinate sentence structure

Just as in English, a subordinate clause may be used at the beginning or end of a complete expression, so long as itis paired with at least one independent clause. For instance, just as one could say either:

I will go with you, if I can. or If I can, I will go with you.

so you can also say in German:

Ich komme mit, wenn ich kann. or Wenn ich kann, komme ich mit.

Note, however, that in German when the independent clause comes after a subordinate clause the conjugated verbcomes before the subject. This arises from the basic rule that always places the conjugated verb in a sentence in thesecond position, even if that puts it ahead of the sentence's subject.

Clauses with dass

Subordinate clauses beginning with dass [thus, so, that] enable the speaker to use statements like nominal phrasesor pronouns. These sentences are singular, neuter and either nominative or accusative. However, the verb must goat the end of the sentence. Ich denke, dass er ein Vater ist.

Dass Spinnen keine Insekten sind, ist allgemein bekannt. ("It's well known that spiders are not insects.")

Ich weiß, dass Spinnen keine Insekten sind. - Ich weiß das. ("I know that spiders are not insects - I know

that.")

Indirect questions with ob

Whereas the word dass indicates that the statement is a fact, ob starts an indirect yes/no question.

Ich weiß nicht, ob ich fliegen soll. ("I don't know whether I should fly.")

Specific indirect question

Relative clauses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause



The outer nominal phrase the relative clause relates to can be any nominal phrase in any case. The clause beginswith a form of the relative pronoun derived from and largely identical to the definite pronoun (der/die/das), or theinterrogative pronoun (welchem/welcher/welches), the remaining words are put after it. Using the interrogativepronoun without good cause is considered typical for legalese language.

Der Mann, der/welcher seiner Frau den Hund schenkt (nominative subject)("The man who gives his wife

the dog")

Der Hund, den/welchen der Mann seiner Frau schenkt (accusative object) ("The dog which the man gives

his wife")

Die Frau, der/welcher der Mann den Hund schenkt (dative object) ("The woman to whom the man gives

the dog")

Der Mann, der/welcher ich bin (predicative noun) ("The man I am")

The outer nominal phrase can also be the possessor of a noun inside. You use the genitive case of a relativepronoun matching the outer nominal phrase in gender and number.

Der Mann, dessen Auto auf der Straße parkt ("The man whose car is parked on the street")

Die Person, deren Auto ich kaufe ("The person whose car I am buying")

Das Auto, dessen Fahrer ich helfe ("The car whose driver I am helping")

Die Kinder, deren Lehrer ich kenne ("The children whose teacher I know")

Prepositions/Postpositions are attached to these phrases in the relative clause if necessary.

Das Haus, in dem ich lebe ("The house I live in")

Die Person, derentwegen ich hier bin ("The person I am here because of")

Das Haus, durch dessen Tür ich gegangen bin ("The house whose door I came in by")

If the relative pronoun is identical to the definite article several identical forms may follow each other.

Der, der der Frau, der ich schon Honig gegeben hatte, Honig gab, muss mehr Honig kaufen ("The man

who gave honey to the woman I had already given honey to, has to buy more honey")

Such constructions are generally avoided by using forms of welch- as relative pronouns.

Der, welcher der Frau, welcher ...

or rather

Derjenige, welcher der Frau, der ich ...

Otherwise, welcher is rarely used (never in the genitive), and without a difference in meaning. If the relativepronoun refers to a thing as yet unknown or a whole sentence and not a part of it, was is used instead, alwaysequivalent here to an English "which".



Der Chef stellte einen Arbeiter ein, was diesen sehr gefreut hat. - "The manager hired a worker, which

the latter was very happy about."

From sentences such as this

In dem Geschäft, wo ( or in dem) man auch Brot kaufen kann, kaufe ich Bier. - "In this shop where you

also can buy bread I am buying beer."

one may understand why colloquial usage extends this to other quasi-locational prepositional expressions

Die Zeit, wo (= in der) wir Rom besucht haben, war sehr schön. - "The time lit. where we visited Rome

was really fine." Regular "in der", literally "in which", would translate to a "when" in English.

and then, in slang, to all relative clauses:

Der Mann, wo bei Siemens arbeitet, hat an der Technischen Universität studiert. "The man where

works at Siemens's has graduated from the Technical University."

Bavarians never use this form. Southern Germans have constructed a double form "der wo, die wo, das wo" which,however, is almost necessary in Bavarian dialect. "Wo" may here be replaced by "was", which for undiscoverable reasons

seems to occur mostly in the feminine genus.

Adverbial clauses

An adverbial clause begins with a conjunction, defining its relation to the verb or nominal phrase described.

Als ich auf dem Meer segelte ("When/As I was sailing on the sea")

Some examples of conjunctions: als, während, nachdem, weil.

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