GERMAN GRAMMAR

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

Grammar

Genders

The three genders are masculine (''männlich/Maskulinum''), feminine (''weiblich/Femininum'') and neuter (''sachlich/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 related to the English word "maid"), and words ending with the diminutive ending ''-chen'' are always neuter. The arbitrary nature of grammatical gender can be seen in the example 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").

Cases

General

German inflects nouns, adjectives and pronouns into four grammatical cases. 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.

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

★ Genitive (''Wessen?''): The possessor of something, or the object of certain other prepositions.

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

★ Accusative (''Wen?''): The direct object, the thing which is directly receiving the action, or the object of certain prepositions

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

'Nom:'	''der'' Tisch	''die'' Tisch''e''
'Gen:'	''des'' Tisch''(e)s''	''der'' Tisch''e''
'Dat:'	''dem'' Tisch(''e'')	''den'' Tisch''en''
'Akk:'	''den'' Tisch	''die'' Tisch''e''

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

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

::The table gave the table of the table to the table.
:This sentence shows off the purpose of cases in German (and in every other language with noun declension), since in English the sentence has to keep the exact same word order to be grammatically correct while there is no need for that 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)''

::''Den'' Tisch ''des'' Tisch''es'' 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)'' der Tisch.

::etc.
:Although some of these may sound exotic in modern day German, they are gramatically correct and with a flexible word order like that it is very easy, for example, to put the most important part of a sentence into the front.

Genitive

First evidence of a decline of the genitive case can already be found in colloquial language of Early New High German (spoken from 1350 to 1650). The use of the genitive case in modern German is still rare in spoken language to a certain extent; speakers often substitute the dative case for it in conversation, quite similar to Faroese. But unlike Faroese, in which the genitive case is about to disappear completely, the genitive case remains almost obligatory in written communication, public speeches and anything that is not explicitly colloquial in German. Television programms and movies often contain a mixing of both, dative substitution or regular Genitive, depending on how formal or "artistic" the programme is intended to be. The use of the Dative substitution is more common in southern German dialects, whereas Germans from nothern regions use the genitive more regularly. Though it has become quite common not to use the genitive case when it would formally be required, great numbers of Germans know how to use it and generally do so. Especially among people of higher education, it's considered a minor embarrassment to be caught using the dative case incorrectly.

A German book called "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" ("Dative is for Genitive its death") alludes to this phenomenon (being called "genitive's death struggle" by the author) in its title. In standard German, the title would be "Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genitivs" ("Dative is Genitive's Death"). As is apparent, the book uses the modern, casual way of speaking by employing the dative case instead of the genitive to poke fun at what the author perceives as a decline in the German language, since in written German a dative construction replacing the genitive is still considered a major error.

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, 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 use implies position (e.g. ''in 'der' Küche'' = "in the kitchen", dative case) or direction (e.g. ''in 'die' Küche'' ("in''to'' the kitchen", accusative case).

Declension of adjectives

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

	Masculine nominative singular	Feminine dative singular
definite article	der schön'e' Mann	vor der verschlossen'en' Tür
indefinite article	ein schön'er' Mann	vor einer verschlossen'en' Tür
no article	schön'er' Mann	vor verschlossen'er' Tür

Plurals

The German language has twelve different ways of forming the plural. A student of German as a foreign language must learn the plural for each new noun learned; although a great many feminine nouns are very regular in the formation of the 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" or an umlaut and an "en", other plurals are the same as the singular, some add "er" or an umlaut and "er", etc.

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

★ "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, 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.

★ "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/... 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 depend on the context, whereas the gender is determined by the main noun.

The genitive attribute

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

★ "Der Beruf des alten Mannes" (''The old man's profession'')

★ "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, one would say: "Die Hütte des Stammeshäuptlings" (''The hut of the tribe's chief'')
A direct translation of "Der Beruf des alten Mannes" would be "the profession of the old man."
"The old man's professions" could be translated directly and correct as "Des alten Mannes Beruf", though this form is almost never used in modern German.
In early high German, the genitive attribute can consist of a personal pronoun in its genitive case. In modern German, this is no longer used; 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).

★ "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

Unlike English, German permits lengthy nominal modifiers such as
"Der während des Bürgerkrieges amtierende Premierminister" (''the during the civil war holding-office prime minister'') or "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 difficulties in communication'').
These are a feature of written (particularly educated) German. One hears them in the context of formal oral communications as well (such as news broadcasts, speeches, etc.).

Relative clause

A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause.

Nouns

Main articles: German 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. Though gramatically wrong, almost always the former is used.)
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 'eins' in German: It can be represented as : "eins", "eine", "einer", "eines", "einem" or "einen" depending on the sentence. This is because in German, 'eins' means one, while 'ein' (as in "Das ist ein Buch") is the German equivalent of the English word "a" ("This is a book").

Adjectives

Main articles: German 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. German adjectives normally go before the noun which they are changing. German adjectives have an ending before the noun. The ending is normally the letter “-e” in the singular form and “-en” in the plural form.
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)] [relative clause]

Personal pronouns

Personal Pronouns
	1st sg	2nd sg	3rd sg			1st pl	2nd pl	3rd pl	2nd formal
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	dein	sein	ihr	sein	unser	euer	ihr	Ihr

★ Note: the genitive form is used as an adjective and hence takes on adjective endings following the normal rules. This includes 'unser' and 'euer', despite the fact that they already end in -er.

Adverbial phrases

Verbs

Main articles: German verbs

Main articles: German conjugation

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.

Modal particles

Main articles: German modal particle

Modal particles (''Abtönungspartikel'') are a part of speech used frequently in spoken German. These words affect the tone of a sentence instead of conveying a specific literal meaning. Typical examples of this kind of word in German are ''doch'', ''mal'', ''halt'', ''eben'', ''nun'', ''schon'', ''eh'' or ''ja''. Many of these words also have a more basic, specific meaning (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 in other languages, with phrases regularly inverted for both questions and subordinate phrases.

References

★ Wietusch, Gudrun, ''Grundkurs Grammatik'' Cornelson (2006) ISBN-10: 3464618056, ISBN-13: 978-3464618059

External links

★ www.canoo.net – Comprehensive German grammar in English

★ German Grammar – a website made by a student with exercises for learning German grammar.

★ German Grammar – Toms Deutschseite - German grammar explained by a native speaker

★ German Verbs – Verb Conjugation Trainer

★ German Grammar – explanation by a native speaker

★ German Declension – a thorough explanation of German nominal phrase declension

★ Online conjugation of German verbs Complete German conjugation of irregular and regular verbs

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