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German grammar

Encyclopedia : G : GE : GER : German grammar

German grammar
Nouns
Verbs
Articles
Adjectives
Pronouns
Adverbial phrases
Conjugation
Sentence structure

This article discusses the grammar of the German language, focusing on Standard German.

Contents

Declension

Every German noun is assigned one of three genders: masculine (männlich/Maskulinum), feminine (weiblich/Femininum) or neuter (sächlich/Neutrum). Unlike English, which does not assign a gender to most nouns, the gender of a German noun and the gender of the thing to which the noun refers often differ. For example, in German, a stone (der Stein) is masculine, whereas a girl (das Mädchen) is neuter. Thus, the gender of a noun mainly depends on the form of the word, not on its real sex. This is called "grammatical gender" a feature of many other languages, such as French. "Mädchen", for example, is the diminutive form of an archaic feminine German noun die Magd, meaning "young woman"(rarely used today), and words ending with the diminutive ending -chen are always neuter. The arbitrary nature of the gender of three common pieces of cutlery: "knife" (das Messer) is a neuter word, "fork" (die Gabel) is a feminine word, and "spoon" (der Löffel) is a masculine word. Students of German are often advised to learn German nouns with their accompanying definite article (equivalent of the word "the").

The German language has both singular and plural numbers.

The cases are the nominative(Nominativ), genitive(Genitiv), dative(Dativ), and accusative(Akkusativ). The case of a particular noun, and therefore the ending used for the noun, depends on the grammatical function of the noun in the sentence.

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, the word mit (with) is followed by the dative, and the word wegen (because of) is followed by the genitive case (although in casual speech, and with pronouns, the dative case is usually used). Certain prepositions have objects either in dative or accusative, depending on whether the verb implies motion, for example Ich bin im Haus ("I'm in the house" - im = in dem, dative), Ich gehe ins Haus ("I go into the house" - ins = in das, accusative).

It is important to note that the inflected form of an adjective not only depends on its gender, but also on the kind of article used (or not used) with it, definite or indefinite.

The genitive case is becoming less common in spoken German. People often substitute the dative case for the genitive in conversation. The genitive case remains standard in written communication.

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 reflexive pronoun

(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, relative clauses 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.

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

A nominal phrase can be regarded a single unit. It has a case, a number, and a gender. Case and number depend on the context, whereas the gender is determined by the main noun.

The word "selbst" or "selber" may be added in order to emphasize the nominal phrase, but this is becoming increasingly uncommon in spoken German.

The genitive attribute

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

: (genitive phrase has its own genitive phrase). This is uncommon in modern German, one would say: "Die Hütte des Stammeshäuptlings" (The hut of the tribe's chief)
In old German, the "genitive attribute" can be a pronoun put in the genitive case. In modern German, this is uncommon; the corresponding possessive pronoun is used instead.

OLD: "Die Gnade seiner" (his grace)
NEW: "Seine Gnade"

Position

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

: (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)

    • Relative clause

    A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause.

    Nouns

    A German noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and belongs to one of three declensions. These features remain unaltered by inflection but must be considered in this process. The grammatical gender influences articles, adjectives and pronouns. Note that gender and sex differ in many cases, as mentioned above.

    Number (singular, plural) and case (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive) must be taken into account in the process of declension.

    The declension can be more difficult than in other languages such as Latin; not only the word ending, but also the root may be altered by inflecting.

    Articles and article-like words

    Articles have a feature called "strength", which influences the declension of the adjectives. There are strong articles, weak articles, and articles that have strong and weak cases. Sometimes this feature is not constant in daily use.

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

    Cardinal numbers

    Cardinal numbers are always placed before any adjectives. If the number is not very high, it is usually not combined with an indefinite plural article like "einige" or "mehrere". Personal pronouns of the first and second person are placed in front of 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 of thousand euro)
    "Wir vier" (the four of us)
    If you use a cardinal number, you must use the plural form of the nominal phrase, in contrast to languages like Turkish.

    NOT: "Zehn Pferd" (turk. "On At")
    BUT: "Zehn Pferde" (ten horses)
    EXCEPTION: "Zehn Bier", "Zehn Biere" (both possible in some cases like drinks)
    Whereas there is a cardinal number meaning "one" in English, Germans use the indefinite article instead. The difference is expressed by the intonation.

    "Ein rotes Buch" can mean
    "a red book": ein rotes Buch; or
    "one red book": ein rotes Buch
    The numbers zwei (two) and drei (three) have endings for case in some cases. Where an adjective would have weak endings, numbers don't have endings. If an adjective had strong endings, these numbers may also have strong 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 centre of a nominal phrase in the dative plural and no other word carries case markers, they may carry dative endings.
    "Ich habe zweien Bananen gegeben" (I've given bananas to two (of them))(old pronunciation)
    Special case for One in German: One can be represented as : "eins", "eine", "einer", "eines", "einem" or "einen" depending on the sentence.

    Adjectives

    To correctly agree German adjectives, the case, number and gender of the nominal phrase must be considered along with the article of the noun.

    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)
    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 in nominal phrases to describe a noun directly). Predicative adjectives, separated from the noun by "to be", for example, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs.

    NOT: "Die Musik ist laute" BUT "Die Musik ist laut" ((the) music is loud)
    There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form and superlative form. In contrast to Latin or Italian, there is no grammatical feature for the absolute superlative (elative).

    Pronouns

    German pronouns of the first person refer to the speaker; those of the second person refer to an addressed person. The pronouns of the third person may be used to replace nominal phrases. These have the same gender, number and case as the original nominal phrase. This goes for other pronouns, too.

    pronoun [position(s)] [selber|selbst] [relative clause]

    Personal pronouns

    1st sg   2nd sg        3rd sg                    1st pl  2nd pl  3rd pl     formal
I        you           he       she     it       we      you     they         you
Nominative  ich      du            er       sie     es       wir     ihr     sie          Sie
Accusative  mich     dich          ihn      sie     es       uns     euch    sie          Sie
Dative      mir      dir           ihm      ihr     ihm      uns     euch    ihnen        Ihnen
Genitive    mein(er) dein(er)      sein(er) ihr(er) sein(er) unser   euer    ihrer        Ihr

    Adverbial phrases

    Verbs

    German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups 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 irregular verbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

    Flavoring particles

    Flavoring particles (Abtönungspartikel) are a parts of speech common to several Germanic languages but absent from English. These words affect the tone of a sentence instead of conveying a specific literal meaning. Typical exapmples of this kind of word in German are "doch," "(ein)mal," "halt," "eben," "nun," or "ja." (In fact, most of these words originally have more clearly delineated meanings. "Ja," for example, means "yes." The flavoring use has a tenuous connection to the more specific meaning.)

    Some examples:

    "Halt" and "eben" imply that the (often unpleasant) fact expressed in a sentence cannot be changed and must be accepted.

    "Gute Kleider sind eben teuer." (Good clothes are expensive, it can't be helped.)
    "Er hat mich provoziert, da habe ich ihn halt geschlagen." (He provoked me, so I hit him – what do you expect?)
    "Ja" indicates that the speaker thinks a certain fact should be known to the listener and intends his statement to be more of a reminder or conclusion.

    "Ich habe ihm ein Buch geschenkt, er liest ja sehr gerne." (I presented him with 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.)
    "Doch" serves as a reply to a real or imagined, or pre-emptively answered, disagreement, hesitation, or wrong assumption on the part of the listener, or other people. In different situations this can have different effects.

    "Komm doch her!" (Why don't you come over?)
    "Komm doch endlich her!" (Come over already!)
    "Ich kenne mich in Berlin aus. Ich war doch letztes Jahr schon dort." (I know my way around Berlin. Did you forget I visited it last year already?)
    The effect that a flavoring particle has is often vague and dependent on the overall context. Speakers often use them somewhat excessively, and sometimes combine several particles, as in "doch mal," "ja nun," or even "ja doch nun mal." They are a feature typical of the spoken language and should be used in formal writing only with careful discretion.

    Sentences

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

    External links

    See also

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