German grammar


German grammar is the set of structural rules of the German language, which in many respects is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages.
Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of English in that it has, among other things, cases and gender in nouns and a strict verb-second word order in main clauses.
German has retained many of the grammatical distinctions that other Germanic languages have lost in whole or in part. There are three genders and four cases, and verbs are conjugated for person and number. Accordingly, German has more inflections than English, and uses more suffixes. For example, in comparison to the -s added to third-person singular present-tense verbs in English, most German verbs employ four different suffixes for the conjugation of present-tense verbs, namely -e for the first-person singular, -st for the second-person singular, -t for the third-person singular and for the second-person plural, and -en for the first- and third-person plural.
Owing to the gender and case distinctions, the articles have more possible forms. In addition, some prepositions combine with some of the articles.
Numerals are similar to other Germanic languages. Unlike recent English, Swedish and Norwegian, units are placed before tens as in Early Modern English, Danish, Dutch, Yiddish and Frisian.

Nouns

A German noun – excluding pluralia tantum – has one of three specific grammatical genders. Nouns are declined for case and grammatical number. In German, all nouns are capitalized, not just proper nouns.

Gender

German has all three genders of late Proto-Indo-European—the masculine, the feminine, and the neuter. Most German nouns are of one of these genders. Nouns denoting a person, such as die Frau or der Mann, generally agree with the natural gender of what is described. However, since the diminutive forms ending in -chen or -lein are grammatically neuter, there exist several notable counterexamples such as das Mädchen and das Fräulein. Thus these are not illogical, whereas das Weib is really an exception. Furthermore, in German, the gender of nouns without natural gender is not predictable. For example, the three common pieces of cutlery all have different genders: das Messer is neuter, die Gabel is feminine, and der Löffel is masculine.
Students of German are often advised to learn German nouns with their accompanying definite article, as the definite article of a German noun corresponds to the gender of the noun. However, the meaning or form, especially the ending, of a noun can be used to recognize 80% of noun genders. For instance, nouns ending in the suffixes -heit, -keit, -ung, -tät, or -schaft are always feminine. Nouns ending in -ich, or -ig, or -ling are nearly always masculine. As noted above, nouns ending in -chen or -lein are neuter. Many nouns starting with Ge- and ending in -e, as well as many nouns ending in -nis, -tum, or -sal, also are neuter. A noun ending in -e is likely to be feminine; it is masculine when it denotes people or a few animals: die Katze, die Blume, and die Liebe are feminine, while der Bote, der Junge and der Knabe are masculine. A few nouns ending in -e are neuter, like das Ende. Similarly, a noun ending in -er is likely to be masculine ; however, das Messer and das Wasser are neuter, whereas die Mutter and die Butter are feminine.

The plural

The German language has several different ways of forming the plural. Many feminine nouns are regular but many masculine and neuter nouns are not. For example, some plurals are formed with an "n" or "en", some with an umlaut and an "e", other plurals are the same as the singular, and some add "er" or an umlaut and "er". Many loanwords as well as some dialectal or colloquial nouns, take a plural in "s". Some foreign endings, such as Latin -um, are deleted before the plural ending. Sometimes the stress in the plural form is changed.
singularplural
die Frau die Frauen
der Mann die Männer
die Kuh die Kühe
der Globus die Globen
der Atlas die Atlanten
der Kuss die Küsse
der Bus die Busse
das Kabel die Kabel
das Auto die Autos
die Mitarbeiterin die Mitarbeiterinnen
der Kaktus die Kakteen

Special colloquial or dialectal plural forms also exist. For example, Stöcker is often used as the plural of Stock "stick" in northern Germany, whereas the standard plural is Stöcke.

Case

General

Unlike English, which has lost almost all forms of declension of nouns and adjectives, German inflects nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns into four grammatical cases. The cases are the nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. The case of a particular noun depends on the grammatical function of the noun in the sentence.
Note: In earlier usage German words derived from Latin also had a vocative and an ablative case, and some words still have a vocative.
In contrast to strongly inflected languages like Latin, German expresses cases more through the article which accompanies a noun than through the inflection of the noun; although the number is also expressed by inflecting the noun. Other exceptions of a suffix expressing the case of a noun along with the article are the forms of genitive and dative singular and dative plural. Yet, one could still say that transferring the case-information to the article preserved the German case system throughout its development from Old High German to contemporary German.

Genitive

Today, the use of the genitive case is relatively rare in spoken language - speakers sometimes substitute the dative case for the genitive in conversation. But the genitive case remains almost obligatory in written communication, public speeches and anything that is not explicitly colloquial, and it is still an important part of the Bildungssprache. Television programs and movies often contain a mix of both, dative substitution and regular genitive, depending on how formal or "artistic" the program is intended to be. The use of the dative substitution is more common in southern German dialects, whereas Germans from northern regions use the genitive more frequently. Though it has become quite common not to use the genitive case when it would formally be required, many Germans know how to use it and generally do so. Especially among the higher educated, it is considered a minor embarrassment to be caught using the dative case incorrectly. So it is not typically recommended to avoid the genitive when learning German: although the genitive has been gradually falling out of use for about 600 years, it is still far from extinct. The historical development of the Standardsprache has to some extent re-established the genitive into the language, and not necessarily just in written form. For example, the genitive is rarely used in colloquial German to express a possessive relation, but the partitive genitive is quite common today. Furthermore, some verbs take the genitive case in their object, but this is often ignored by some native speakers; instead, they replace these genitive objects with prepositional constructions: e.g. Ich schäme mich deiner. turns into Ich schäme mich wegen dir..
A German book series called Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod alludes to this phenomenon in its title. In correct standard German, the title would be Der Dativ ist des Genitivs Tod, or alternatively Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genitivs. As is apparent, the book uses dialect, i.e. by employing the dative case together with a possessive pronoun 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. This is, by the way, not how most Standard German speakers would colloquially replace the genitive case; rather, this usage is prevalent in some German regional dialects, such as Bavarian. Standard German speakers would construct Der Dativ ist der Tod vom Genitiv, which is incorrect in the Standard as well, but far less incriminating.
Linguistically, the thesis of the genitive case dying out can easily be refuted. Indeed, the genitive case has been widely out of use in most dialects of the German language for centuries. Only the replacement of dialects by a colloquial Standard German is new, and the use of the genitive case in the written language is unaffected. Also, many Germans wrongly use the genitive after prepositions such as nahe, gemäß and entgegen, although the dative is required.
There are, however, legitimate dative constructions to indicate possession, as in "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch zu eigen". The construction zu eigen, virtually appears only in Latin beginners' translations, as the sentence should indicate. Some dialects have "Dem Knaben ist ein Buch" which is literally a dativus possessivus. If a genitive is unmarked and without article, usage of von, followed by the dative, is not only legitimate but required, as in: "Die Belange von Minderheiten sind zu schützen". In that case, "Belange der Minderheiten" would contain a definite article, which does not reflect the intended indefiniteness of Minderheiten; "Minderheiten" itself is an unmarked plural, i.e. it could be any grammatical case. Additionally, the dative case is commonly used to indicate possession of bodily parts that are the direct objects of an action. Constructions such as Er brach sich den Arm. and Du stichst dir die Augen aus, Junge! are typical and correct in any context. In English, this construction only occurs in the construction to look someone in the eye and its variants.

Dative

The dative case is used for the indirect object of a verb. The sentence "Ich gebe meinem Sohn einen Hund" contains a subject "ich", a verb "gebe", an indirect object "meinem Sohn"; and a direct object "einen Hund". "Meinem Sohn" is the to whom or the destination of the object of the subject's action, and therefore takes the masculine dative -m.
Dative also focuses on location. German places strong emphasis on the difference between location and motion; the accusative case is used for motion and the dative for location. There are four important verbs that show this dichotomy: hängen/hängen, legen/liegen, stellen/stehen, setzen/sitzen. The sentence Ich hänge das Bild an die Wand., "I hang the picture on the wall." demonstrates motion. On the other hand, the sentence das Bild hängt an der Wand. shows location; now, the picture is located on the wall, so Wand is dative.

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 is followed by the accusative case, the word mit is followed by the dative, and the word außerhalb is followed by the genitive case. Certain prepositions, called "two way prepositions", have objects either in dative or accusative, depending on whether the use implies position or direction.

Nominal (or noun) phrases

A German nominal phrase, in general, consists of the following components in the following order:
article, number, adjective, noun, genitive attribute, position, relative clause, reflexive pronoun
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 main noun determines the gender.

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.
A direct translation of "Der Beruf des alten Mannes" would be "the profession of the old man." "The old man's profession" could be translated directly and correctly as "Des alten Mannes Beruf", though this form is almost never used in modern German, even if educated circles regarded it a very elegant use of language. It is found in poetry, especially if helpful for metrical and rhyming purposes.

Position

A nominal phrase may contain a "position phrase"; this may be seen as merely another nominal phrase with a preposition or a pronominal adverb.
German permits lengthy nominal modifiers, for instance:
"Der während des Bürgerkrieges amtierende Premierminister", the Prime Minister holding office/officiating during the civil war.
"Die noch zu Anfang des Kurses relativ kleinen, aber doch merklichen Verständigungsschwierigkeiten", the communication difficulties still relatively small at the beginning of the course, but nevertheless noticeable.
These are a feature of written German. One also might hear them in the context of formal oral communications as well.

Relative clause

A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause.
Aside from their highly inflected forms, German relative pronouns are less complicated than English. There are two varieties. The more common one is based on the definite article der, die, das, but with distinctive forms in the genitive and in the dative plural. Etymologically this is related to English that. The second, which is more literary and used for emphasis, is the relative use of welcher, welche, welches, comparable with English which. As in most Germanic languages, including Old English, both of these inflect according to gender, case and number. They get their gender and number from the noun they modify, but the case from their function in their own clause.
The relative pronoun dem is neuter singular to agree with Haus, but dative because it follows a preposition in its own clause. On the same basis, it would be possible to substitute the pronoun welchem.
However, German uses the uninflecting was as a relative pronoun when the antecedent is alles, etwas or nichts, or when the antecedent is an entire clause.
But when was would follow a preposition, it needs to be replaced with wo + preposition or wor + preposition when the preposition begins with a vowel. The same applies to indirect questions.
In German, all relative clauses are marked with a comma.

Articles and article-like words

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

In relation to nouns, cardinal numbers are placed before adjectives, if any. If the number is relatively low, it is usually not combined with an indefinite plural article. Personal pronouns of the first and second person are placed before numbers. Personal pronouns of the third person cannot be used with numbers.
The cardinal number "one" is partly identical in form and inflection to the indefinite article. The number is distinguished from the article in speech by intonation and in writing sometimes by emphasis. In colloquial German, the indefinite article ein is sometimes shorted to , whereas eine becomes. In dialects, the shortening may arrive at or in Upper German regions. The cardinal number, however, always retains its full pronunciation.
The numbers zwei and drei have case endings in some instances. Where an adjective would have weak endings, numbers do not have endings. If an adjective had strong endings, these numbers may also have strong endings in the genitive case
If there is no other word carrying the strong ending of the genitive plural, the numbers must carry it.
If these numbers are center of a nominal phrase in the dative plural and no other word carries case markers, they may carry dative endings.

Adjectives

German adjectives normally precede the noun they are modifying. German adjectives have endings which depend on the case, number and gender of the nominal phrase. There are three sets of endings: strong endings, mixed endings and weak endings. Which set is used depends on what kind of word the adjective comes after, and sometimes also on the gender and case.
Like articles, adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders.
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. Predicative adjectives, separated from the noun by "to be", for example, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs.
There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form and superlative form.

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 examples which exemplify all three cases:
Masculine nominative singularFeminine dative singular
definite articleder hübsche Mann vor der verschlossenen Tür
indefinite articleein hübscher Mann vor einer verschlossenen Tür
no articlehübscher Mann vor verschlossener Tür

Note that the word "kein" is declined similarly to the indefinite article.
Declension of adjectives is mandatory even in proper names. The name of Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for instance, changes into "das Kunsthistorische Museum" when preceded by a definite article. Adjectival bynames given to historical or legendary persons must also be declined according to their grammatical role in a phrase or sentence. Hence, one says Karl der Große ist im Jahre 800 Kaiser geworden, but das Schwert Karls des Großen.

Pronouns

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

Personal pronouns

Notes:
The reflexive personal pronoun takes distinct forms only in the 3rd person dative and accusative, to wit, sich..

Adverbial phrases

Verbs

German verbs may be classified as either weak, if they form their past tense with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, if they exhibit a vowel gradation. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise. However, textbooks often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are more than 200 strong and irregular verbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

Verbs in sentence structure

In German declarative main clauses the finite verb is always placed as the second element. When there are more verbs in a sentence, the non-finite ones are placed at the end of the clause. With a subordinating conjunction, all verbs appear at the end of the clause. A verb placed as the second element does not necessarily mean it is the second word, rather, it is the second constituent of the clause. For instance the first position may be occupied by an article and a noun, a possessive pronoun, or even an entire subordinate clause.
Examples:
Examples:
The following examples illustrate the use of subordinate clauses as the first element in a verb second structure:
Inside a subordinate clause, introduced by a conjunction or a relative pronoun, the finite verb form comes last. Examples:
German has many verbs that have a separable prefix that can be unattached to its root. Examples are aussehen, to appear or look, and vorstellen, to imagine, or to introduce.
Prepositions in German can be difficult for English speakers to master. The simple reason is that prepositions are designed to give some direction, location, intensity, etc. to a sentence. The way an English speaker would indicate such things may be totally different from the way a German speaker would.
Furthermore, there are instances where German uses a preposition in a way that might seem strange to a native English speaker, e.g. as a separable prefix attributed to a verb. For example, in "Mach' die Lichter aus!", aus is used instead of "ab". There is also the verb ausschlafen, literally "to sleep out", which in English idiom would be expressed by "sleep in".
The objects of some prepositions have a fixed case. For example, if 'bei', a dative preposition, is used in a sentence, its object will be dative, as in the sentence "Ich mache einen Besuch bei meiner Familie.. Notice the dative feminine inflection on "mein".
The following chart shows the cases associated with several prepositions in common usage.
* With the dative in colloquial style and most often with pronouns.
** May take the genitive.
*** As a preposition takes the genitive or a colloquial dative: entlang des Weges "along the way", but as a postposition it takes the accusative with the same meaning: den Weg entlang.
"Unusual" prepositions, which exist in vast amounts in bureaucratic style, as a rule take the genitive. The nascent preposition "Richtung" takes the accusative. An expanded list of prepositions taking the genitive case may be found .
Two-way prepositions with either the dative or accusative mean location with the dative, as in "where", and direction with the accusative, as in "where to?".

Modal particles

Modal particles 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 wohl, doch, mal, halt, eben, nun, schon, eh, auch or ja. Many of these words also have a more basic, specific meaning, but in their modal use, this meaning is not directly expressed — that is, there is no real English equivalent to those words, so in an English translation, the German modal particles are usually omitted.

Sentences

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