1.4 Excursus: Prepositions and Case
1.5 Declension of Articles and Pronouns
This document explains how to work on certain problems of German grammar with the help of a rote-learning program. You need to download it and read how it works. To speak a language well and not just gain a passive reading knowledge, you need to spend as much time as possible attempting to converse in the language, which means taking intensive language lessons with good teachers, spending time in a country where the language is spoken, or better, both at once. But rote learning is also an essential part of language training, and well suited to tackling certain problems.
By declension we mean the inflection of the noun and of the words that attach to it (articles, pronouns, adjectives) in order to indicate gender (masculine, neuter, feminine), quantity (singular, plural), and case (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). Unfortunately, this system is rather complicated in German. Fortunately, it is highly amenable to methodical labor with rote-learning software. The Exercises 1–4 here are really just a warm up for execises 5 and 6, which combine all aspects of declension in a truly mind-hurting fashion.
| Exercise 1: Total Mastery of German Noun Gender | rote.de.01.genus.txt |
|---|---|
You get given a word like Fliege and you have to answer f, for feminine, or if you get Staat you would answer m for masculine, or if you got Buch you would answer n for neuter. If you go through one or two thousand words a day, you can master the German genders in a week or so. Once you catch on to the fact that -heit, -keit, -ung, und -schaft words are all feminine, you may want to strip those words out of the list by doing e.g. sed -e '/heit:/d' infile > outfile. | |
A precondition for mastering declension is knowing the gender of every noun. Some notes on noun gender in German:
1 Every noun has takes one of the 3 genders: masculine, neuter and feminine. These are grammatical genders, and relate to the way these words inflect and relate to other words. They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the gender of the object that is being described. A man becomes feminine if you describe him not as der Mann but rather die Person; a girl and a woman can both be described using neuter nouns: das Mädchen, das Weib.
2 When a word is a compound word, it is always the last word of the compound that determines the gender: der Schweinehund; die Sozialpolitik; das Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz.
3 Often gender can be automatically determined by the ending of the word.
| Masculine: | -ich, -ig, -ling, -s, -and, -ant, -är, -ast, -eur/-ör, -ent, -ier, -iker, -ikus, -ismus, -ist, -or |
| Neutral: | -chen, -lein, -le, -icht, -tel, -tum, -eau, -o, -ett, -in (Greek words), -ing (English words), -(i)um, -ma, -ment |
| Feminine: | -ei, -in, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -ung, -a, -ade, -age, -aille, -aise, -ance, -äne, -anz, -ation, -elle, -ette, -euse, -ie, -(i)enz, -(i)ere, -ik, -ille, -ine, -ion, -ation, -isse, -(i)tät, -itis, -ive, -ose, -sis, -ur, -üre |
4 Gender can often be determined by the meaning of the word.
| Masculinum: | Jahreszeiten, Monate, Tage, Himmelsgegenden, Winde, Niederschläge, Erdarten, Gesteinsarten, Geldbezeichnungen |
| Neutrum: | Metalle, chemische Elemente, Medikamente, Verkleinerungsformen, Substantivierungen, Kollektivbegriffe mit dem Präfix Ge- |
| Femininum: | Baumbezeichnungen, viele Blumenbezeichnungen, Zahlen, Druckarten, Schriftarten |
| Exercise 2: Plural Forms of German Nouns | rote.de.02.plural.txt |
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| You are given a German noun in the nominative singular and a plural article, and you must answer with the correct plural form. So if the question is Baum, die the die is asking you for the nominative or accusative form of the plural, and you reply Bäume. If the question is Baum, den the den is asking you for the dative form of the plural, and you would answer Bäumen. A der would be asking you for the genitive plural, which is always just the same as the nominative/accusative plural. | |
How do we build the basic plural form in German? Duden Dud·4,§ 386 distinguishes 5 plural types:
| 1 | e-Plural | Ein Tag, Zwei Tage; Ein Traum, Drei Träume |
| 2 | ∅-Plural | Ein Computer, Drei Computer; Ein Apfel, Drei Äpfel |
| 3 | [e]n-Plural | Ein Mensch, Drei Menschen |
| 4 | er-Plural | Ein Ei, Drei Eier; Ein Gott, Drei Götter |
| 5 | s-Plural | Ein Baby; Drei Babys |
They are distinguished by their endings, but this does not quite tell the whole story, because we must add that in types 1 2 4 many words additionally change their vowel with an Umlaut. (It should also be noted that a smaller number of words have irregular Latin or Greek style endings: Brontosaurus / Brontosaurier, Cello / Celli, Lexikon / Lexika &c.) As with noun gender, the plural formation is something that you just have to drill into your head.
In the dative case, every plural adds an n to the end, unless: a it already ends in n, making no further n necessary; b the plural ends in s, since adding an n would then sound silly.
The definite articles for the plural are die for nominative and accusative; den for the dative; der for the genitive. I have built them into the exercise so that you get used to them.
| Exercise 3: Genitive Forms of German Nouns | rote.de.03.genitiv.txt |
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| You will be given a German noun and must provide the correct article and genitive form. So if you get Haus you would reply with des Hauses, or if it were Frau you would reply with der Frau. | |
The genitive is the case that expresses possession, among other things.
1 As mentioned above, there is no special genitive form of the plural—the genitive plural is just the same as the nominative and accusative plural.
2 Feminine singular nouns are easy: they make no changes in the singular, not even for the genitive.
3 Neuter nouns in the singular are easy: they all add an [e]s with the one exception of the word Herz.
4 Masculine nouns in the singular are the problem: they mostly try to add an [e]s like neuter words. But there is a special class of masculine words, call them the n-declension, which add an [e]n in all cases except the nominative. Nouns of this n-declension will generally just stick with their [e]n ending, and not add an s. But a further subset of this declension will add a further s after the n. Confused? Take a look:
| Nom. | Acc. | Dat. | Gen. | |
| What a normal masculine noun does: | Traum | Traum | Traum | Traums |
| What a normal n-declension masculine noun does: | Mensch | Menschen | Menschen | Menschen |
| What a subset of the n-declension masculine nouns do: | Name | Namen | Namen | Namens |
| And one neuter word is strange: | Herz | Herz | Herzen | Herzens |
5 Often the genitive s is added to a word as es. There are three kinds of words in this respect: words which must take only s, words which must take only es, and words which may take either at your discretion. For simplicity’s sake my word lists use basic s wherever this is allowed.
s, the short form, must be used if the noun ends on an unstressed syllable, because the es will tend to shift the stress to the syllable just before it. Particularly, according to Duden Dud·4,§ 382 words ending in unstressed -e, -ler, -ner, -le, -en, -sel, -tel, -chen, -el, -er, -lein, -ling. Beyond this, s must be used for the noun forms of colors, and will be mostly used for nouns that end with a vowel.
es, the long form, must by used for nouns ending -s, -ss, -ß, -x, -z; and where the genitive is set before the thing that it possesses: des Mannes Name
.
There is a very strong tendency to use es after -sch, -tsch, and -st. A tendency to use it to avoid having three consonants in a row after -ld, -md, -nd, -pf. And es often feels more correct on the end of a one-syllable word.
Beyond this, it is at your discretion to use s or es. One might say that es sounds sometimes a little formal in spoken German, and s may seem in some cases not quite proper enough in written German.
6 The definite article in the genitive singular is des for masculine and neuter, der for feminine nouns.
The exercises that follow will use prepositions to indicate what case is required. The majority of all prepositions in German will force the use of a particular case. The moment we use the preposition für, we know that the object following it must be in the accusative case: für das Kind; the moment we use mit we know that the object that follows must be in the dative: mit dem Kind. In the course of the exercises you need to recognize the cases required by the following prepositions:
| Accusative: | betreffend, durch, für, gegen, je, ohne, um, wider. |
| Dative: | aus, bei, entgegen, entsprechend, gemäß, mit, nach, samt, von, zu. |
| Genitive: | abseits, anhand, anlässlich, aufgrund, bezüglich, diesseits, hinsichtlich, infolge, statt, unerachtet. |
Although I try here to use relatively common prepositions, I have had to avoid a set of the most important ones: all of the prepositions of location (an, auf, in, neben, &c.) can take either the accusative, indicating movement toward a location, or dative, indicating something’s being at a location.
| Exercise 4: General Declension of German Nouns | rote.de.04.nomendelk.txt |
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| You are given a noun possibly preceded by a preposition and a number, like: mit 100 Narr. You deduce from the preposition mit that the dative case is case is required, and from the number that a plural is required, and then you answer with preposition, correct article, and declined noun: mit den Narren. If no preposition were present, you would deduce that the nominative case is required. If there is no number present, you answer in the singular. | |
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der | das | die | |
| Accusative | den | |||
| Dative | dem | der | den | |
| Genitive | des | der | ||
The table on the right shows you the definite articles. Next you need perhaps a summary of all points of the noun declension problem:
1 Generally, there are 3 points at which we are looking to change the form of the noun: a when we move from singular to singular genitive; b when we move from singular to plural; c when we move from plural to dative plural.
Ad a Feminine nouns never make a change between singular nominative and singular genitive; masculine and neuter nouns always do, basically adding an s.
| Nom. | Acc. | Dat. | Gen. | N/A/G Plural | Dat. Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masc. 2: | Mensch | Menschen | ||||
| Fem. 2: | Oma | Omas | ||||
| Masc. 2: | Opa | Opas | ||||
| Neut. 2: | Ufo | Ufos | ||||
| Neut. 2: | Mädchen | Mädchens | Mädchen | |||
| Masc. 2: | Balken | Balkens | Balken | |||
| Fem. 3: | Mutter | Mütter | Müttern | |||
| Masc. 3: | Name | Namen | Namens | Namen | ||
| Masc. 3: | Führer | Führers | Führer | Führern | ||
| Neut. 3: | Gemälde | Gemäldes | Gemälde | Gemälden | ||
| Neut. 3: | Herz | Herzen | Herzens | Herzen | ||
| Masc. 4: | Hund | Hunds | Hunde | Hunden | ||
| Neut. 4: | Objekt | Objekts | Objekte | Objekten | ||
| Using the old-fashioned dative-e we can get 5 forms: | ||||||
| Masc. 5: | Mann | Manne | Mannes | Männer | Männern | |
Ad b Feminine nouns always make a change between singular and plural; masculine and neuter nouns sometimes do and sometimes don’t.
Ad c Everything tries to add an n to the end in the dative plural if it doesn’t already have one, unless the plural ends in s.
2 A special set of masculine words, the n-declension, and also the neuter noun Herz, behave strangely. See 1.3 above.
3 In older texts you will find some masculine and neuter nouns taking an e on the end in the dative singular.
4 Since all feminine nouns exhibit a singular/plural difference, and all masculine and neuter nouns exhibit at least a singular/genitive singular difference, every noun has a minimum of 2 forms. If singular, genitive singular, plural, and dative plural differ, then we get a maximum of 4 forms. If we use an old-fashioned dative e, we can get 5 forms as an absolute maximum.
| Exercise 5: | rote.de.05.pronomen.txt |
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| You are given something like gegen jed_ 100 Betrügerei, aufgrund d___ and you have to answer with the fully declined gegen jede Betrugereien, aufgrund deren. That is, decline the first article or pronoun depending on the case of the first preposition and the gender and number of the noun, and then decline the correct relative pronoun depending on the case of the second preposition using the same gender and number of the noun. | |
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | -er / ∅ (der, dieser, jener &c. / ein, kein, mein, dein, ihr &c.) | -s / ∅ (das, dieses, jenes &c. / ein, kein, mein, dein, unser &c.) | -e (die, diese, jene, eine, keine, meine, ihre, unsere &c.) | |
| Accusative | -en (den, diesen, jenen, einen, keinen, meinen, deinen, ihren &c.) | |||
| Dative | -em (dem, diesem, jenem, einem, keinem, deinem, unserem &c.) | -er (der, dieser, jener, einer, keiner, meiner, deiner &c.) | -en (den, diesen, jenen, keinen, meinen, unseren, deinen &c.) | |
| Genitive | -es (des, dieses, jenes, eines, keines, deines, unseres &c.) | -er (der, dieser, jener, einer, meiner, unserer, deiner &c.) | ||
This table shows you the complete ending pattern for all articles and pronouns. Notice that in the masculine nominative and in the neuter nominative and accusative have a second option, which is a null-ending. In these particular cases, an indefinite article (ein, kein) or a possessive pronoun (mein, dein, sein, ihr, euer, unser) will have no ending. Everything else basically follows the standard pattern.
The definite articles are: der, das, die, den, dem, des. The indefinite articles are: ein and kein + endings. The possessive pronouns are: mein, dein, sein, ihr, euer, unser + endings. There are a large number of remaining pronouns, including such as: diese, jene, jede, welche, manche, einige, etliche, mehrere &c. + endings. In the case of derjenige or derselbe, you have to break the word into two pieces, der + jenige or der + selbe, and decline the first part as a definite article, and the second part as if it were an adjective following a definite article, for which see below.
| Relative Pronouns | Mas | Neu | Fem | Plu |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der | das | die | |
| Accusative | den | |||
| Dative | dem | der | denen | |
| Genitive | dessen | deren | ||
Finally, we just need to throw in the relative pronouns, which are used to refer back to an already mentioned subject noun, in the way that we would use in English which, that or whose. You have to take the number and gender of the subject that you are referring to and combine them with the case that the subject is taking in the current part of the sentence, which is not necessarily the same as the case it took when you first mentioned it: Der Mann, den der Hund gebissen hat.
The genitive use of the relative pronouns may seem confusing at first. In order to say The man, whose book it was
we say Der Mann, dessen Buch es war
. This is, I think, the only occasion where the pronoun is being declined with absolutely no reference to the noun that is following it. The dessen has been determined only by the number and gender of der Mann, not by the number and gender of Buch. It could be dessen Buch, dessen Frau, dessen Hund, dessen Kleidungen &c.
| Exercise 6: | rote.de.06.adjdekl.txt |
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| You are given something like aus dies_ groß_ Verewigung and you have to answer with the fully declined aus dieser großen Verewigung. That is, on the basis of the case of the preposition, correctly decline article or pronoun, the adjective that follows it, and the noun. | |
| Strong | Weak | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mas | Neu | Fem | Plu | Mas | Neu | Fem | Plu | |
| Nominative | -er | -es | -e | -e | -e | -en | ||
| Accusative | -en | -en | ||||||
| Dative | -em | -er | -en | -en | ||||
| Genitive | -en | -er | ||||||
There are two ways to look at the declension for adjectives. One is to say that there are three declension systems: one where the adjective follows a definite article or pronoun of like declension, one where it follows an indefinite article or possessive pronoun, and finally a case in which it stands alone. Another, perhaps easier, way to look at it is to say that there are two declension forms for the adjective, traditionally known as strong and weak. If a preceding article or pronoun has already taken the strong ending, then the adjective follows with a weak ending. If there has been no preceding article or pronoun, or in one of the three cases where an indefinite article or personal pronoun has no ending, then the adjective takes a strong ending.
This table shows for each case the strong ending followed by the weak ending. You will notice that the strong endings are basically the same as those above for articles &c., except that the masculine and neuter genitive is -en. There are only two possible weak endings: -e or -en.
This now gives you the ability to decline an article or pronoun followed by an adjective.