Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 July 31

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July 31

Question of German grammar: "das beste erhaltene"

The German version of an information sheet at a historical site I volunteer at contains the following phrase: "möglicherweise das beste erhaltene Klostermühle". I would have expected "die", to agree with Mühle, but I can see that this might be because it somehow groups as "[das beste erhaltene] Klostermühle" as opposed to "die [beste erhaltene Klostermühle]". Can somebody explain the grammar to me please (or tell me that it's a mistake)? --ColinFine (talk) 08:57, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't know German, but let me ask you this: In "possibly the best preserved monastery mill" would you count both monastery and mill as nouns? And if so, what should their respective "the's" be? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Bugs, as a general rule, German compound nouns take the gender of the last noun. Unfortunately I can't find anything in English WP about this (I haven't looked in de.wiki; might be there). My German is old and rusty and never was very good, so I can't answer Colin's question specifically. --Trovatore (talk) 09:19, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

The rule can be found here. Idiomatically, one would write "die besterhaltene Klostermühle". --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

@ColinFine: it’s a grammatical mistake, it should be die Klostermühle. Also, as Wrongfilter has pointed out, beste erhaltene sounds non-idiomatic – one would probably say besterhaltene or am besten erhaltene. Rgds ✦ _hugarheimur 11:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Both mistakes are typical for a native speaker of English or probably even more typical for an automated translation. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 08:16, 1 August 2016 (UTC)