![]() Nouns in plural that do not already end in -n or -s (the latter mostly found in loanwords) gain an -n in the dative case.The genitive case of other nouns of masculine or neuter gender is formed by adding either -s or -es, e.g.der Name, des Namens, and otherwise behave exactly like weak nouns. A handful of masculine "mixed" nouns, the most common of which is Name, gain an -ns at the end in the singular genitive, e.g.Masculine weak nouns gain an -n (sometimes -en) at the end in cases other than the singular nominative. ![]() ![]() Only the following nouns are declined according to case: ( April 2015) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help improve this article if you can. The specific problem is: "weak nouns" & "strong nouns" - that has to be explained (maybe by a link to somewhere, where it is explained). This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:Įuer is slightly irregular: when it has an ending, the e can be dropped and endings are added to the root eur-, e.g. The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:Īdjectival possessive pronouns (or possessive determiners) and kein decline similarly to the article ein. These are sometimes referred to as der-words. Instead, the declension of the pronoun kein (no, not any, not one) is given, which follows the same pattern.Ĭertain adjectival pronouns also decline like der: all-, dies-, jed-, jen-, manch-, solch-, welch. 1).Įin has no plural as in English, the plural indefinite article is void, as in "There are cows in the field." ("Es gibt Kühe auf dem Felde."). Note: ein is also a numeral which corresponds to English "one" (i.e. The indefinite articles ( ein, etc.) correspond to English "a", "an". The definite articles ( der, etc.) correspond to the English "the". 6 Undeclined geographic attributive wordsĪrticles Definite article.Historically, these and several further plural inflections recall the noun declension classes of Proto-Germanic, but in much reduced form. Many neuter or masculine nouns ending in a consonant, like das Blatt or der Baum ("the leaf" and "the tree") form plurals by a change of vowel and appending -er or -e: die Blätter and die Bäume ("the leaves", "the trees"). For example, many feminine nouns which, in the singular, end in e, like die Reise ("the journey"), form the plural by adding -n: die Reisen ("the journeys"). However, the nouns themselves retain several ways of forming plurals which often, but not always, correspond with the word's gender and structure in the singular. Nouns may also be either singular or plural in the plural, one declension is used regardless of gender―meaning that plural can be treated as a fourth "gender" for the purposes of declining articles and adjectives. Modern High German distinguishes between four cases- nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative-and three grammatical genders-feminine, masculine, and neuter. English lacks such declinations (except for rare and exceptional ones, such as blond/blonde), meaning that an adjective can be written in only one form. The adjective neu (new), for example, can be written in five different ways (neue, neuer, neues, neuen, neuem) depending on the gender of the noun that it modifies, whether the noun is singular or plural, and the role of the noun in the sentence. For example, all German adjectives have several different forms. "Einen Apfel isst ein Mann (an apple)-direct object is eaten by (a man)-subject) with little or no change in meaning.Īs a fusional language, German marks nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives to distinguish case, number, and gender. "Ein Mann isst einen Apfel" (a man)-subject eats (an apple)-direct object) and can be expressed with a variety of word order (ex. A translation of the same sentence from German to English would appear rather different (ex. This sentence cannot be expressed in any other word order than how it is written here without changing the meaning. In English, a simple sentence must be written in strict word order (ex. As a result, German can take a much more fluid approach to word order without the meaning being obscured. Declension allows speakers to mark a difference between subjects, direct objects, indirect objects and possessives by changing the form of the word-and/or its associated article-instead of indicating this meaning through word order or prepositions (e.g. German declension is the paradigm that German uses to define all the ways articles, adjectives and sometimes nouns can change their form to reflect their role in the sentence: subject, object, etc.
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