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

German declension is the declensional system of the German language. In keeping with a fairly conservative, fusional language, German marks nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives to distinguish case, number, and gender. This article discusses the grammar of the German language, focusing on Standard German. ... A German noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and belongs to one of three declensions. ... German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). ... German articles have a feature called strength, which influences the declension of the 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 Pronouns of the first person refer to the speaker; those of the second person refer to an addressed person. ... There are several different kinds of adverbial phrases in German. ... This is a paradigm of German verbs, that is, a set of conjugation tables, for the model regular verbs and for some of the most common irregular verbs. ... German sentence structure is somewhat more complex than in other languages, with phrases regularly inverted for both questions and subordinate phrases. ... In linguistics, declension is a paradigm of inflected nouns. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ... A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to squish together many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment. ... In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word or sentence. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a part of speech (a word or phrase) which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually describing it or making its meaning more specific. ... In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ... In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words. ... It has been suggested that natural gender be merged into this article or section. ...


Modern High German distinguishes between four cases—nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive—and three grammatical genders—feminine, masculine, and neuter. Nouns may also be either singular or plural. The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... It has been suggested that natural gender be merged into this article or section. ... Look up Plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. ...

Contents


Articles

Definite articles[1]

These correspond to the English "the". Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzards 1996 performance released on video and CD. The video/DVD and CD performances were both recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. ...

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine der den dem des
Neuter das das dem des
Feminine die die der der
Plural die die den der

Indefinite articles[2]

These correspond to English "a", "an", or "one". Note that there is no plural. An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. ...

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine ein einen einem eines
Neuter ein ein einem eines
Feminine eine eine einer einer

Pronouns

Personal pronouns[3]

The English next to the genitive German forms is actually possessive case, which serves a slightly different purpose. Genitive case for pronouns is currently considered archaic.[3] In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word that usually takes the place of a noun or noun phrase that was previously mentioned (such as she, it) or that refers to something or someone (I, me, you). Pronouns are often one of the basic parts of speech of the... Possessive case is a case that exists in some languages used for possession. ...

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
ich - I mich - me mir - to/for me meiner - my
du - you (informal singular) dich - you dir - to/for you deiner - your
er - he ihn - him ihm - to/for him seiner - his
sie - she sie - her ihr - to/for her ihrer - her
es - it es - it ihm - to/for it seiner - its
wir - we uns - us uns - to/for us unsrer - our
ihr - you (plural) euch - you euch - to/for you eurer - your
Sie - you (formal singular) Sie - you Ihnen - to/for you Ihrer - your
sie - they sie - them ihnen - to/for them ihrer - their

Interrogative pronouns

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Personal ("who") wer wen wem wessen
Impersonal ("what") was was was von was

An interrogative word (also known simply as an interrogative) is a function word used for the item questioned in a question. ...

Relative pronouns

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine der den dem dessen
Neuter das das dem dessen
Feminine die die der deren
Plural die die denen deren

A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. ...

Possessive pronouns

All possessive pronouns conform to the same inflectional paradigm: A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ... An inflectional paradigm is a table illustrating the forms of an inflected word. ...

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine - -en -em -es
Neuter - - -em -es
Feminine -e -e -er -er
Plural -e -e -en -er

To illustrate, here is the complete paradigm of mein ("my").

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine mein meinen meinem meines
Neuter mein mein meinem meines
Feminine meine meine meiner meiner
Plural meine meine meinen meiner

Demonstrative pronouns [4]

These may be used in place of personal pronouns to provide emphasis, as in the sentence "Den sehe ich" ("I see that"). Also note the word ordering: den corresponds to "that", and ich corresponds to "I". Placing the object at the beginning of the sentence places emphasis on it. English, as a generally non-declined language, does not have this feature. A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ...

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine der den dem dessen
Neuter das das dem dessen
Feminine die die der deren
Plural die die denen deren

Reflexive pronouns

Used when a subject and object are the same, as in "Ich wasche mich" = "I wash myself" In some languages, there is a difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns. ...

Accusative Dative
mich - myself mir - to/for myself
dich - yourself dir - to/for yourself
sich - himself/herself/itself/oneself sich - to/for himself/herself/itself/oneself
uns - ourselves uns - to/for ourselves
euch - yourselves euch - to/for yourselves
sich - yourself/yourselves (formal) sich - to/for yourself/yourselves
sich - themselves sich - to/for themselves

Attributive adjectives

Predicate adjectives are undeclined.[5] Other adjectives use the following declension patterns.


Strong inflection[6][7]

This is used when there is no preceding article.

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine -er -en -em -en
Neuter -es -es -em -en
Feminine -e -e -er -er
Plural -e -e -en -er

Weak inflection[6][7]

This is used when there is a preceding definite article ("der-word"). These include jen- ("that, those"), solch- ("such a"), manch- ("many, some"), jed- ("each, every"), all- ("all"), dies- ("this, these"), and welch- ("which").

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine -e -en -en -en
Neuter -e -e -en -en
Feminine -e -e -en -en
Plural -en -en -en -en

Mixed inflection[6]

This is used when there is a preceding ein-word (i.e. words like mein, dein, sein, kein etc.) or one that conjugates alike (like unser for example).

Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.
Masculine -er -en -en -en
Neuter -es -es -en -en
Feminine -e -e -en -en
Plural -en -en -en -en

Notes and references

  1. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 55
  2. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 58
  3. ^ a b Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 209
  4. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 213
  5. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 169
  6. ^ a b c Canoo guide to adjective inflection
  7. ^ a b Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 170


 

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