Talk:German declension

Nouns

I'd be happy to read about when the nouns get any suffixes (like -s in genitive and -n in plural dative). After all, these belong to the declension, too. (The various forms of the plural need not be treated here, at least not necessarily in the first turn.) Adam78 00:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Unsrer/unser, eurer/euer

My Langenscheidt's german dictionary lists the first person plural genitive pronoun and the second person plural genitive pronoun as unser and euer, rather than unsrer and eurer. Could someone verify this? I am a german newb. --Sneftel 04:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd opine that 'unser' and 'euer' are possessive, rather than genitive. Therefore, I guess, English is lacking a real equivalent. Correct me, if I'm wrong.

Indeed, for nouns, the possessive is a special case of the genitive. ("des Kaisers neue Kleider" = "The Emperor's New Clothes") However, genitive forms of the personal pronouns are not to be confused with the possessive pronouns or their genitive forms, respectively. ("Er erinnerte sich meiner." old-fashioned for "Er erinnerte sich an mich." = "He remembered me." vs. "die Eltern meiner Mutter" = "my mother's parents" or "the parents of my mother")

Thus I also doubt that the statement

"The English next to the genitive German forms is actually possessive case..."

is true for pronouns. At least I can not think of any German sentence or expression including a personal pronoun in genitive case that becomes a possessive pronoun when translated into English.  –  Korako 09:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that clears it up. My background is from latin, in which the possessive is the genitive. Thanks! --Sneftel 20:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm a native German speaker and I would like to comment that all of the genitive forms of the personal pronouns in the table are incorrect. Indeed, genitive of 'wir' is 'unser', genitive of 'ihr' is 'euer.' Likewise, ich - mein, du - dein, er - sein, sie - ihr, es - sein, sie (pl./formal) - ihr. For example: 'Wessen Kleider sind das? -- Sie sind unser.' 'Wem gehören diese Bücher? -- Sie sind alle mein.' Note however, that the use of the genitive in these cases is old-fashioned. Modern German would say: 'Die Kleider gehören uns.' 'Die Bücher gehören alle mir.' The genitive of these pronouns is not identical to the possessive forms: 'Wessen Kleider sind das? -- Es sind uns(e)re (Kleider).' 'Wem gehören die Bücher? -- Sie sind alle meine (Bücher).' -- alexraasch, 21 July 2007

Your statement that the genitive forms of the personal pronouns were not identical to the possessive forms is actually contradictory to what you said above, e.g. that the genitive of 'ich' was 'mein'. In fact, however, 'mein' is a possessive pronoun with its own accusative (meinen/meine/mein), dative (meinem/meiner/meinem) and genitive forms (meines/meiner/meines). Indeed the genitive forms of personal pronouns are vanishing: "Ich erinnere mich deiner." becomes "Ich erinnere mich an dich." and "deiner wegen" has long ago yielded "deinetwegen" or (wrongly) "wegen dir".

Of course translation cannot be counted on to help us in every case, but it can give us some useful clues: Let's take your example "Sie sind unser.", which means "They are ours.", where 'ours' is obviously still a possessive pronoun, albeit used more like a noun rather than like an adjective.  –  Korako 08:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that your table was totally incorrect but that you should add the forms I mentioned earlier. 'meiner', 'deiner', etc. are the genitive forms of the personal pronouns but when the genitive is used in a possessive meaning (which I think is essentially to it -- '... des Kaisers ...') you also need the other forms. That's also what my examples tried to explain and this is also stated by Sneftel's dictionary. What I meant with that possessive and genitive are not the same simply was meant to confirm your statement that they must not be confused althought spelled the same. -- alexraasch, 22 July 2007

Well, I didn't mean to sound upset, so no reason to be sorry. Debate is a good thing.

Yet I cannot think of an example in which a personal pronoun in genitive case has a possessive meaning, since for that we already have possessive pronouns. Above I tried to make a point on demonstrating that nouns do not behave the same way, so what you say was essential to the genitive is merely essential to nouns. As for Sneftel's dictionary, he only cited two examples, that look more like spelling issues to me.

I think we need to bare in mind that we're only talking about conventions, not about a priori rules here. We could abolish the personal/possessive-distinction and declare that possessive pronouns are only a special case of their personal counterparts. It's intuitive and it works pretty well for English. However, separating the two seems more convenient to me, since we can decline German possessive pronouns (as opposed to English "my", "your"...). If we made the possessive a case, we'd end up with some kind of double-declension.

If you feel that we are going in circles here, feel free to start a German discussion on my talk page, which might be a good thing considering the fact we're both native speakers. (I am not that comfortable about a switch of language on this talk page, though, since here every one should be able to understand us.)  –  Korako 15:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

There are at least two uses of the genitive case (not counting obsolete use with certain verbs requiring it): To show possession, and for use with pronouns requiring the genitive case. The first of these is addressed in the article, but the second is practically ignored. For the second, the table is incorrect, as the dative doubles as the genitive when needed by a preposition (e.g. "statt mir"). Furthermore, the article currently claims the following:

There is neither a dative nor a genitive of the impersonal interrogative pronoun. Generally, prepositions that need to be followed by either case merge with "was" to form new words such as "wovon" ("whereof") or "weswegen" ("for what reason").

but the native speaker (Frankfurt) I asked said without doubt that "mit wem" and "statt wessen" are perfectly reasonable usage of "was", for impersonal use (as distinguished from usage of the personal interrogative "wer", which has the same form in these cases). So, what is the proper way to ask things like "Instead of what?" Is there regional/personal variation? The article should be less vague. Matt Cook (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Inflexions of pronoun 'man'?

What are the infexions of the pronoun 'man'? It seems they've been missed out of the tables. That is, of course, if there are any at all. Perhaps, it is, in the dative, einem/einer/einem/einen and, in the accusative, einen/eine/ein/eine etc? Or do they just avoid it? Tanzeel 15:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I added some information about that subject.

Korako 17:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

2 things

1) I didn't like the description of German as a "conservative langauge" and providing this opinion as justification for the existence of a case system. I would rather a description of what the system actually does rather than whether we think that the system is either 'progressive' or 'conservative'. I have provided a few sentences that flesh out the idea of a case system instead of just quickly introducing the paradigm which would be confusing to a speaker of an uninflected language. 2) The first sentence seemed redundant to me: "German Declensions are the system of Declension in the German language." The term under definition is being defined by its own term. I have reached out to a few more ideas to provide a beginning definition. : sable_de_nuit 17:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Consistency

Some tables have the cases along the rows and some along the columns. Please pick one style and use it throughout. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.67.3.229 (talk) 14:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I standardised on the layout I saw in almost all my German textbooks: cases along the rows, genders along the columns; m-f-n-pl, Nom-Acc-Gen-Dat. Note that this is different from the traditional order, derived from Latin, namely Nom-Gen-Dat-Acc, but is better for pedagogical purposes. Some textbooks put Dat before Gen, though.

In my edit I also made some other changes:

• Mentioned plural as fourth "gender" for declension purposes
• Added some clarifying notes:
  • genitive personal pronouns vs possessive adjectives
  • genitive masculine and neuter strong adjective declension being a source of confusion
  • er and sie sometimes translated it
• Added the terms "der-word" and "ein-word" in the definite and indefinite article sections respectively
• Possessive pronouns are ein-words, so I merged them. Also added kein to this section, and corrected: the plural indefinite article exists and is void just as in English
• Demonstrative pronouns have the same form as relative pronouns, so I merged those too. Also mentioned euer becoming eur-
• Added the nominative forms to reflexive pronouns for clarity
• Added some examples e.g. of predicate adjective
• Added a description of man
• Removed all links from headings

Hairy Dude (talk) 23:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the order Nom-Acc-Gen-Dat is better for pedagogical reasons, but even in German schools the Nominative is called "1. Fall", the Genitive is called "2. Fall" etc. Wouldn't it be better to abide by the classical order Nom-Gen-Dat-Acc? I think the order Nom-Acc-Gen-Dat could cause confusion for learners, sooner or later.

--Schall&Wahn (talk) 15:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that users would be confused if the order is Nom-Acc-Gen-Dat if it is clearly marked and consistent throughout the whole article. I actually prefer Nom-Acc-Dat-Gen more. I have only seen it laid out this way all of my German Text books. But being consistent is the main issue. Mochattez 07:34, 21 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mochattez (talk • contribs)

Just throwing this out there in terms of the ordering of the tables. I haven't formally studied German in either Germany or America so I have to take the word of others on what is common in standard texts. However, a quick survey of a dozen or so independent free sites covering cases in German seem to vary wildly from each other, although they are consistent within themselves.

For an example or two, about.com consistently orders the cases in: NADG format, which seemed logical to me as a speaker of English and may have drawn me to it. Clearly there are those who would find it easiest to correlate with their primary sources which are either in NAGD or NGDA, regardless of which we think is "best". The explanations I have read so far seem to indicate that the genitive is really decreasing in popularity in modern German and arguably the "least important" of the four, which makes me expect to see it last.

Would it then be a waste of time to make the tables reconfigurable, individually if not collectively? This would make them neutrally useful to those studying primary reference materials using each of the common case orderings, and automates the manual effort I imagine some who are used to learning and thinking of the declensions in different case orders doing the re-ordering to the one they are most used to.

There are other analogies to tables illustrating articles on mathematics subjects, computer science, geography etc. where there is no one overwhelmingly ubiquitous row ordering to data presentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.44.113.173 (talk) 18:31, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

"to/for" in Dative?

"mir - to/for me" - this is confusing. "To me" is Dative, but "for me" is really Accusative

--68.7.73.9 (talk) 11:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Possessive pronouns

There is a "possessive pronoun" entry in the "Pronouns" section of this article. However, the (very short) text in it actually refers to possessive adjectives or determiners: mein, dein,.../my, your,... Possessive pronouns are supposed to be something else (mine, yours, ...) and they might need an entry here. However, I am a native speaker of neither german nor english, so this post is just to attract the attention of someone knowledgeable on the matter, who'd be kind enough to perform an appropriate edit. I'd think either delete the entry altogether (possessive adjectives are already treated elsewhere, and anyway wouldn't belong in the "pronouns" section), or replace the text by what the declension of actual possessive pronouns is. Racaillou (talk) 12:55, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The possessive pronouns section either needs a table of the uninfected forms or a link to the corresponding section on the German pronouns page. Schemer4 (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

M-F-N-P or M-N-F-P?

In my language class, teacher teach: Masculine-Neuter-Feminine-Plural format and it is also helpful to memorize things in this way. Can I change this in all table? Godhulii 1985 (talk) 11:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Traditional Latin & German order of genders is "masc. - fem. - neut. - plur." and order of cases is "nom. - gen. - dat. - acc. (- voc. - abl.)". As the cases are ordered in another way, then it should be ok to reorder genders. -14:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Case order

At least in Germany, the traditional order is Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative (which were formerly also called 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th case). Has this changed in recent years? Is the English tradition of teaching German different? This would make the old (numbered) case names confusing... -- megA (talk) 18:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Traditional Latin & German order of cases is "nom. - gen. - dat. - acc. (- voc. - abl.)". Modern linguists (Germ.: Linguisten =/= Sprachwissenschaftler) order cases like "nom. (- voc.) - acc. - gen. - dat. (- abl.)". In recent years both ways of ordering the cases are in use. The ordering "nom. - acc. - gen. - dat." is also used in German (Langenscheidt Kurzgrammatik Deutsch, though the book's content is retarded and was most likely written by an English speaker). -14:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Questionable assertion

In the first paragraph it says "A transliteration of the same sentence from German to English would appear rather different (ex. John-subject sees Mary-directobject) and can be expressed with a variety of word order (ex. Mary-directobject sees John-subject) with little or no change in meaning." but given that this sentence has no articles or adjectives, that's not really true. Wouldn't be a better example be "John eats an apple?" (such that "Einen Apfel isst John" is an acceptable word order). At any rate "word order" should probably have an 's'... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wizofaus (talk • contribs) 03:35, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Introduction: "John sees Mary" works the same way in German...

"In English, a simple sentence must be written in strict word order (ex. John sees Mary). A transliteration of the same sentence from German to English would appear rather different (ex. John-subject sees Mary-directobject) and can be expressed with a variety of word order (ex. Mary-directobject sees John-subject) with little or no change in meaning."

Actually, no. "John sieht Mary" only means "John sees Mary", since names don't have declension endings for Accusative (in modern German). The example sentence only works with nouns, articles, or adjectives that have different declension endings for Nominative and Accusative cases. A workaround would be: "Der John sieht die Mary" (subject-object) vs. "Den John sieht die Mary" (object-subject), but articles are usually only used with names in southern dialects. An example sentence should use distinct endings for different cases, otherwise the meaning would not be definite and normal word order (as in English) would be assumed: John sieht Maria != Maria sieht John. -- megA (talk) 23:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

You could make a similar workaround in English actually using the definite/demonstrative distinction. Ie "Mary has already seen the doctor. (Which doctor?) THAT doctor Mary has already seen." 122.151.160.219 (talk) 13:59, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

John sees Mary/Mary sees John

Exactly how does declension mark the difference between subject and object in German in this example? The German would give Johann sieht Maria <---> "Maria" sieht Johann. There is no declension happening here at all. The only way you'd know the difference is in stress in the speaker's voice - John sees Mary. MARY, sees John (not Stacey). Just as in English. It's with weak masculine nouns with articles and adjectives that "declension" becomes a lot clearer. Eg "DeR lange Name ist schwierig auszusagen." "Ja, ich kenne deN langeN NameN auch. Die Buchstabierung deS langeN NameNS weiss ich nicht" etc. You don't seen this kind of declension in names usually. Except maybe cases like "Das ist Marx. Marxens Geburtstag liegt in Oktober." Or maybe in Latinates. Christus ist der Herr. Sie sind jetzt mit Christo. Christi Geburtstag heisst Christmas im Englischen. So the writer needs to explain exactly what s/he is referring to - declension of names or of articles (which is technically inflection, not declension). 122.151.160.219 (talk) 13:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

John ignores Mary, eats Apple instead

I tried to fix the example sentence for one that actually uses articles (which are declined) to mark the subject/object distinction irrespective of word order. I am not a native German speaker so if it's incorrect please change it back to the less-wrong example (or better, let's find an example that actually *does* show the variable word order in German). 108.7.201.112 (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

What counts as "fully indicat[ing] the case, gender, and number of the noun"?

The section on declination of attributive adjectives says that the strong declination is used when there is no preceding article, or when "the preceding article does not fully indicate the case, gender, and number of the noun". It's not at all clear to me what that actually requires. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.112.55.5 (talk) 13:49, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Noun conjugation

On the German language page of this article nouns are divided into 4 groups and 13 subgroups:

		S1 m, n	S2 m, n	S3 f	S4 m, n	S5 m, n	S6 f	S7 m, n	W1 m, n	W2 f	M1 m, n	M2 m, n	F1 m, n	F2 f
Singular	Nom Acc
	Dat	(e)	(e)		(e)				(e)n		(e)	(e, en)
	Gen	(e)s	(e)s		(e)s	s		s	(e)n		(e)s	(e)ns	s
Plural	Nom Acc Gen	¨er	¨e	¨e	e	¨	¨		(e)n	(e)n	(e)n	(e)n	s	s
	Dat	¨ern	¨en	¨en	en	¨n	¨n	n	(e)n	(e)n	(e)n	(e)n	s	s

Artur Severi Bilov (talk) 12:51, 9 August 2023 (UTC)