Talk:German grammar

Discussion Page:

General:

<1>Q: This page is getting pretty long, it should be split up!
A: There will be a need for splitting up the topic when this article grows. Actually it should be done right now.

<2>Q: I found a mistake!
A: Correct it

<3>Q: The style is cruel!
A: Improve it!

<4>Q: There is something wrong, a native speaker would never speak like that!
A: If you are sure, correct it, please.

<5>Q: You should explain what a/an adjective/noun/adverb/preposition is!
A: No, imagine Italian grammar, French grammar, Japanese grammar et cetera with the same explanations. The same stuff a hundred times. Only facts specific for German should be explained here.

<6>Q: I want a tutorial!
A: This is not a tutorial.

<7>Q: Ich kann Deutsch.
A: Dann hilf uns! ;)

Specific:

<8>Q: Why "possessive article" and "demonstrative article"?
A: I know that terms like "dieser" or "seines" are "officially" called pronouns. But they behave actually like articles, and these Wikipedia-articles would turn unnecessarily complicated, if you called them pronouns. Maybe there is a term applicable to both articles and pronouns used as articles.

<9>Q: Why is _the complete_ conjugation not in German Grammar: Verbs?
A:The Conjugations of Perfekt, Plusquamperfekt, Futur I & II include the construction of sentences. So I decided to put the Conjugation in "verbs". I regard this structure as more logical.

Discussion Section

<1>:

• I don't think so. It is way too long and should be shortened. There are plenty of little details that should be cut away to make this article more readable: If it's not readable, nobody will read it. If nobody will read it, ¿what's the point? IMHO, someone who wants to learn all the details is going to buy a grammar book anyway. User:Capullo 21:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

• am native speaker. Just IMHO, ok? article is way too long for fast

overview and OTOH too short for a real grammar.

• It's much too long for a wikipedia article. It should be broken up into German verbs, German pronouns, etc. On the other hand, it's incredibly useful as it is. --Stevage 13:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• see <6>.

<3>

• I improved it but it seems that change was unwanted. IMHO, comparing German tenses (and their usage & meaning) to English tenses gives English speakers instant access to the topic: Immer an die Leser denken, liebe Kollegen!. User:Capullo 21:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

• I didn't found any changes after the old article was overwritten except by myself. If I have removed some stylistic corrections, add them again, please.

<4>

• Native speakers would say it like that, but interested monolingual English readers won't understand it. You must give translations! User:Capullo 21:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

• I agree, principially. They should be added.

<6>

• Good question: What is it? User:Capullo 21:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

• I suppose it to be a online grammar book. If you shorten this article, you can make it a tutorial anyway, I think. An interessting alternative would be to make a deeper article about special stuff, for example about the development of German Grammar, past influences from other languages, or something in this way.

• This article seems to me quite "umfangreich" (includes much). So wouldn't it be better to join it with the one in the wikibooks and only refering to this page?

<9>

• I don't. User:Capullo 21:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

• I think, that there should be a Conjugation Part in the Verbs Section. Verbs was intended to do nothing more than showing up the possible forms, and not to explain the tenses. All the tenses, including Präsens and Präteritum, are actually explained in the corresponding Section after. I think, the construction of the forms should not be mixed up with the usage of the tenses. So, actually my answer was wrong: Präsens and Präteritum are not explained in the Verbs Section, just their forms are, but without any further context; the Tenses Section takes the forms and puts them into a context, so it actually explains all the Tenses.

Generic pronoun in German grammar

In German, is the German word for "he" commonly masculine or commonly generic?? 66.245.12.170 22:27, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Masculine: "Es ist ein Er" (=it is a he = it is a boy). "Ein" could also signify neutral grammatical gender, but an ER in capitals just does not feel neutral at all ;-) All nouns and pronouns that refer to human beings and all pronouns that refer to animals (often also nouns that refer to animals) are masculine or feminine depending on the sex of the person/animal. Exception: If the noun ends in "-chen" or "-lein" (like in Mädchen, Fräulein=girl), it is a diminutive that is always neuter. Therefore, a girl is a grammatical "it" in German (literally: "The girl wears white shoes. It loves them"). Nevertheless, often "sie" (she) is used as a pronoun for Mädchen ("She loves them") in order to avoid the impression that a girl is a liveless thing. Another exception: Kind (=child) is always neuter, be it a boy or a girl. However, Junge (boy) is always masculine. Also, all other masculine nouns are referred to as "er" (he). "Der Mann kaufte einen Stuhl. Er bezahlte ihn in bar" (literally, "The man bought a chair. He paid him cash." -- The chair is a "he").

english names for grammatical constructions

for consistency across this article (i.e. "Noun" instead of "Nomen oder Hauptwort"), I want to (and will presently) change all the grammatical names to their english equivalents.

Style edits by me

I have made numerous style edits throughout this article. I have tried to make the English usage as correct as possible consistent within the article. There are still a few Latin grammatical terms in this article, but I don't know their English equivalents offhand (I'm not a grammarian).

Also, I replaced a number (maybe all?) of the tables with the so-called Wiki-td table syntax (see Help:Table). This form is more compact and (in my opinion) easier to read and manage than standard HTML syntax. I also used <th> and <caption> markup where appropriate in tables.

I think this article is now in better shape. Please drop a note on my talk page if you have any questions or comments Gwimpey 05:37, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

section on verbs

Ok, so tonight I rewrote some of the section on verbs, and I might have done a lot of questionable changes, but at least i included tables of preterite conjugation and an explanation as to which German verbs build the perfect with "haben" and which with "sein". And I miss them. Poccil, could you please explain why you didn't keep them?

--Kruemel 00:00, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

translation

Die Hütte des Stammeshäuptlings best translates as "the chief of the tribe's hut" because

• Stammeshäuptling is "the chief of the tribe" and the possessive of that is "the chief of the tribe's".
• The chief of the tribe is a person, and with people we don't usually use "of" but rather "'s" in English, e.g: Bob's hat, not the hat of Bob.
• You couldn't misunderstand this as "the chief of the hut belonging to the tribe" as it doesn't make sense.

Keep on looking for mistakes, though, because I'm sure I've made one somewhere! :-) Saintswithin 12:52, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My intention was to provide a (kind of literal) "translation" more closely following German word order rather than a perfect English translation as this could help users who are not too familiar with German to easier understand the structure of the example. --Markus (Mh26) 18:09, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is a gorgeously useful site by the way

I especially appreciated finding exactly this information all in one page. And FYI, I found this page through a copy site (www.answers.com) through a Google search, looking for an explanation of the patterns of the Imperative forms of German verbs. Thanks, and congratulations. ---Rednblu | Talk 23:52, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

accusative of duration

I removed "über". It is more natural to use it, but it ruins the point of the example. It is supposed to show how an accusative without preposition or postposition can be used. Using a postposition here spoils everything.

Generic Terms

The terms "genitive attribute" and "position" are generic and I'm not sure of their origin. Ladefoged in his book titled "Transformational Grammar" refers to these items as complements and adjuncts of noun phrases respectively.

In addition the term "genitive attribute" might be associated with what Ladefoged has termed attributives, which are adjectives and other prenominal adjuncts. Since complements are referred to by this article as attributes and linguists use the term attributive to describe what this article terms positions confusion could result.

Original research?

I hate to say it, but this page looks like original research. Everything should be cited to reference books. --Stevage 13:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I doubt that descriptions and examples fall under the header "original research". I can say full-heartedly that all of this came from some book some where.

Then I hope it isn't a copyvio :) Stevage 19:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This isn't really research anyway, these are examples of common occurances. We aren't exploring anything here that 80 million plus people don't already know to one degree or another. I think we can provide examples of german grammar without resorting to finding a quote for every single possible iteration...

Ionesco 20:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Revamp noun table

I have completely rewritten the declension classes noun table, as I found it almost incomprehensible in its previous form. The biggest change is now instead of just showing a noun form as "-e", it's shown as, eg, "Berge". For reference here is the old table:

-(e)s, -e    der Berg, des Berg(e)s, die Berge
   Nom.    Acc.    Dat.     Gen.
   -0-     -0-     -(e)     -(e)s
   -e      -e      -en      -e

-(e)s, -er   das Bild, des Bild(e)s, die Bilder
   -0-     -0-     -(e)     -(e)s
   -er     -er     -ern     -er

-(e)s, -en   der Staat, des Staat(e)s, die Staaten
   -0-     -0-     -(e)     -(e)s
   -en     -en     -en      -en

-s, -0-  der Fahrer, des Fahrers, die Fahrer
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -s
   -0-     -0-     -n     -0-

-s, -e  der Lehrling, des Lehrlings, die Lehrlinge
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -s
   -e      -e      -en      -e

-s, -s  das Radio, des Radios, die Radios
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -s
   -s      -s      -s       -s

-en, -en  der Student, des Studenten, die Studenten
   -0-     -en     -en      -en
   -en     -en     -en      -en

-0-, -0-  die Mutter, der Mutter, die Mütter
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -0-
   -0-     -0-     -n     -0-

-0-, -en  die Meinung, der Meinung, die Meinungen
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -0-
   -en     -en     -en      -en

-0-, -e  die Kraft, der Kraft, die Kräfte
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -0-
   -e      -e      -en      -e

-0-, -s  die Gang, der Gang, die Gangs
   -0-     -0-     -0-      -0-
   -s      -s      -s       -s

-(e)ns, -(e)n  der Name, des Namens, die Namen
   -0-     -(e)n   -(e)n    -(e)ns
   -(e)n   -(e)n   -(e)n    -(e)n

It would be great if someone could check this, as I don't actually speak German at all. I suspect it's wrong for mutter and krafte (something to do with ablaut - I know nothing), and for name - is nameen really possible?

All comments welcome. Stevage 19:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

German word stems sometimes change in the plural form by adding an umlaut and/or changing a vowel letter in the middle of the final syllable (umlauted vowels are technically different vowels anyway, so this is really one principle). the parentheses in the last row indicate that the letter e doesn't always join the word stem. Words that end in a vowel would only add the letter n. Durova 04:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Verbs

I've made a change to explain a small class of verbs better. Those whose prefixes can be either separable or inseparable depend on whether the speaker intends the literal or figurative meaning. I've provided a new example that anyone with a year or two of studies can understand: "Bitte wiederholen Sie das," vs. "Bitte holen Sie das wieder." This should convey a better understanding in about the same space as the former version. Regards, Durova 03:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

More stuff I've explained weak nouns above the table that presents an example, expanded the description of prepositional cases, and added a subsection about flavoring particles. Maybe some of the things that tormented me as a student will be more comprehensible to the next generation. Durova 04:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Prepositional phrases

Since "im" and "ins" are usually used instead of "in dem" and "in das", respectively, the sentence "Ich schlafe in dem Haus" rather conveys the impression that the person sleeps in a particular house. --Markus (Mh26) 22:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Subordinate clauses

I've added the convention about time, place, and manner to the subordinate clause section. Durova 23:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction in adjective inflection section?

"Strong inflection is used:

• When no article is used
• After manch- (some), solch- (such), viel- (much; many), welch- (which), which have definite article declination."

but a few paragraphs later...

"Weak inflection

The weak inflection is used when there is 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 adjective endings are simpler."

Not being a German speaker myself, I don't know which is correct, but surely not both? Tennin 16:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Other sites seemed to support the second passage, so I went ahead and changed the article (moving "After manch- ..." to the weak section) figuring that someone informed can always revert/clarify if this is incorrect. Tennin 19:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Splitting

I have begun the process of splitting it into several articles: German nouns, German verbs, German sentence structure. Ideally each of those sections in this article would still contain a basic overview of the topic, without going into too much detail. Then this article will end up as a concise overview of German grammar, and the subarticles will contain the detail. Would others like to continue the process of splitting? Stevage 22:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Strange sentence

I noticed the following in the article:

NOT: Die Soldaten dessen Armee

Anyone know what this is associated with? I know it is incorrect (it should be Die Soldaten, deren Armee...etc.) but it isn't clear what it's trying to show. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 10:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Origin of "Mädchen"

Hello everybody,

just a tiny correction:

"Mädchen", for example, is the diminutive form of an archaic feminine German noun die Magd, meaning "young woman"

It is this diminutive from of "die Maid", as well meaning "young woman". I'm just going to exchange the two occurrences of "Magd".

Entry in German Wikitionary

Oliver Uwira 09:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I think wiktionary is wrong. Do you have another source? -lethe ^{talk +} 10:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Mädchen entstand im 17. Jahrhundert aus Mägdchen, der Verkleinerungsform zu Magd 
(ahd. magad, mhd.   maget, daraus auch mhd. meit, nhd. Maid; idg. magho-s jung).

Als Diminutiv ist Mädchen sächlichen grammatikalischen Geschlechts; trotzdem folgt ein weiter 
entfernt stehendes Pronomen oft dem biologischen Geschlecht: »Silke war ein aufgeschlossenes 
Mädchen, das guten Kontakt zu seinen Kameradinnen fand. Besonders bemühte sie sich auch um ihre 
Schwester.« (Beispiel aus Duden, Band 9) [1]

Yes, I believe you are right. As a native speaker the Wiktionary entry made perfect sense for me and I additionally always thought it was derived from "Maid". Now the above explanation says "Maid" and "Magd" have a common Old High German root. I'm not a very experienced Wikipedian yet, so I would leave the decision to you. Just revert the change or add this bit of information? And lay a hand on the Wiktionary entry? Oliver Uwira 09:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

So your source says that Mädchen is the diminutive of archaic Magd. This is in agreement with what I know about the word. It says that there is an nhd word Maid. What's nhd? New High German? Anyway, I think the wiktionary entry is the right place to have a detailed etymology of the word. Here, it suffices to say "diminutive of Magd", though I think we could also get away with saying nothing at all. -lethe ^{talk +} 13:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a little misstake in the comment on "die Magd". The meaning of "Magd" as a young woman may be rarely used today, but "Magd" as a special word for a femal, unmarried person working on a farm it is still in use, especially in Bavaria, so I concluse that the expression should be changed into "rarely used in this context/meaning today" Unfortunately, I am not registered in the english Wikipedia, so you must be lucky with Grami

German grammar infobox

It would be great if somone could make an infobox linking the different topics together. Just something which links to German grammar, German verbs, German nouns and so forth - there are about 10 such articles. It could then be placed at the top of each of these articles to make it easier to navigate around. I'm just a bit busy atm. Stevage 13:51, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, did it. AWB rocks. Stevage 17:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Kümmel

What is the plural of kümmel?Cameron Nedland 21:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The same as the singular: Kümmel. --Schuetzm 14:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you.Cameron Nedland 19:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Kümmel is an uncountable noun, same as Wasser (water), Geld (money) or Sand. -- net 09:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Kümmel is also the name of a kind of schnaps, in which case it is countable.

Hello, here is Christoph,a native speaker from Germany. Sorry, my english isn´t perfect, but I hope you understand me. Since a few weeks I am "surfing" in the english version of wikipedia to read something interesting about Germany and german persons from your sight. I read your discussion about Kümmel. Kümmel is uncountable. It´s like "Salz" oder "Zucker". I guess you mean "Kümmerling" with the Schnaps. The plural of this word is "Kümmerling" too: Ich habe gestern 1 Kümmerling getrunken (Yesterday I was drinking one Kümmerling (or something like that)) Ich habe gestern 10 Kümmerling getrunken. (Yesterday I was drinking (I drunk?) ten Kümmerling. NOT: Kümmerlinge oder Kümmerlings

In the german version of wikipedia my name is Christoph Radtke

You can't compare "Kümmel" to "Wasser" because Kümmel IS countable. "Ein Kümmel" is one corn of the sort of spice called "Kümmel". "Salz" does have a countable plural, too("Salze", meaning minerals and stuiff...). It's just that Kümmel's plural is the same as its singular nominative form, just like "der Himmel" (= 1.the sky 2.Heaven).

"Wasser" does have a plural ("Gewässer") but it's not countable, same goes with "Geld" (money) and "Gelder" ("moneys", when you're talking about census and the like). It does have a plural but not a countable one and its plural can actually change the meaning of its singular form.1stLtLombardi 17:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Different cases of Genitive Pronouns

The endings of genitive pronouns change with the gender, number and case of the noun in whose place they stand, in the same way genitive adjectives' endings change with the case of the noun the modify. Eg. "Ich mag meiner Vater," as opposed to "Mein Vater mag mich." The table in the section "pronouns "should at least make a note of this when discussing genitive pronouns, right now it seems that all genitive pronouns and adjectives end in "er" in all scenarios. Not all need to be listed in that particular table, but a note should be made and a link given to a table that lists all forms of possesive pronouns, or at least the indefinite article, which follow the same pattern. As a reference, I am using:

• Moeller, Jack, Adolph, Winnifred, Hoecherl-Alden, Gisela, and Lalande II, John Deutsch Heute Houghton Mifflin Co. (2000) ISBN: 0-395-96259-5

JoeyETS 00:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"das Mädchen"

I know that "Mädchen" is an often used example for a "wrongly" used gender, but in my opinion, it's a quite irritating one. In fact, the diminutive terms "-lein" and "-chen" will turn every word into a neuter, regardless of its original neuter. "Das Haus {n}" -> "Das Häuschen {n}", "Der Herr {m}" -> "Das Herrchen {n}" or "Die Magd {f}" -> "Das Mägdchen/Mädchen {n}". That doesn't make a word lose its original neuter. Maybe someone with better English skills than me wants to point that out in the article. --213.196.193.62 12:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

No idea how to use this page, so please excuse any mistakes... There are plenty of examples for "wrong" genders, as "das Weib" (woman) is neutral (sächlich), while "die Sache" (thing, case) ist female (weiblich).