German declension

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German grammar
Nouns Verbs Articles Adjectives Pronouns Adverbial phrases Conjugation Sentence structure Declension Modal particle

German declension is the paradigm that German uses to define all the ways words can change shape to reflect their role in the sentence: subject, object, etc. Declension allows speakers to mark a difference between subjects, objects, indirect objects and possessives by changing the form of the word—or its associated article—instead of indicating this meaning through word order or prepositions (e.g. English, Spanish, French). As a result, German can take a much more fluid approach to word order without the meaning being obscured.

As a fusional language, German marks nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives to distinguish case, number, and gender.

Modern High German distinguishes between four cases—nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive—and three grammatical genders—feminine, masculine, and neuter. Nouns may also be either singular or plural.

Contents 1 Articles 1.1 Definite articles[1] 1.2 Indefinite articles[2] 2 Pronouns 2.1 Personal pronouns[3] 2.2 Interrogative pronouns 2.3 Relative pronouns 2.4 Possessive pronouns 2.5 Demonstrative pronouns [4] 2.6 Reflexive pronouns 2.7 Indefinite pronouns 2.7.1 the pronoun "man" 3 Attributive adjectives 3.1 Strong inflection[6][7] 3.2 Weak inflection[6][7] 3.3 Mixed inflection[6] 4 Notes and references 5 See also

[edit] Articles

[edit] Definite articles^[1]

These correspond to the English "the".

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	der	den	dem	des
Neuter	das	das	dem	des
Feminine	die	die	der	der
Plural	die	die	den	der

[edit] Indefinite articles^[2]

These correspond to English "a", "an", or "one". Note that there is no plural.

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	ein	einen	einem	eines
Neuter	ein	ein	einem	eines
Feminine	eine	eine	einer	einer

[edit] Pronouns

[edit] Personal pronouns^[3]

Genitive case for pronouns is currently considered archaic ^[3] and is used only in certain archaic expressions like "ich bedarf seiner" (I need him)

Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
ich - I	mich - me	mir - to/for me	meiner
du - you (informal singular)	dich - you	dir - to/for you	deiner
er - he	ihn - him	ihm - to/for him	seiner
sie - she	sie - her	ihr - to/for her	ihrer
es - it	es - it	ihm - to/for it	seiner
wir - we	uns - us	uns - to/for us	unserer
ihr - you (informal plural)	euch - you	euch - to/for you	eurer
Sie - you (formal singular & plural)	Sie - you	Ihnen - to/for you	Ihrer
sie - they	sie - them	ihnen - to/for them	ihrer

[edit] Interrogative pronouns

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Personal ("who/whom")	wer	wen	wem	wessen
Impersonal ("what")	was	was	1	1

1. 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").

[edit] Relative pronouns

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	der	den	dem	dessen
Neuter	das	das	dem	dessen
Feminine	die	die	der	deren
Plural	die	die	denen	deren

[edit] Possessive pronouns

All possessive pronouns conform to the same inflectional paradigm:

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	-	-en	-em	-es
Neuter	-	-	-em	-es
Feminine	-e	-e	-er	-er
Plural	-e	-e	-en	-er

To illustrate, here is the complete paradigm of mein ("my").

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	mein	meinen	meinem	meines
Neuter	mein	mein	meinem	meines
Feminine	meine	meine	meiner	meiner
Plural	meine	meine	meinen	meiner

[edit] Demonstrative pronouns ^[4]

These may be used in place of personal pronouns to provide emphasis, as in the sentence "Den sehe ich" ("I see that"). Also note the word ordering: den corresponds to "that", and ich corresponds to "I". Placing the object at the beginning of the sentence places emphasis on it. English, as a generally non-declined language, does not have this feature.

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	der	den	dem	dessen
Neuter	das	das	dem	dessen
Feminine	die	die	der	deren
Plural	die	die	denen	deren

[edit] Reflexive pronouns

Used when a subject and object are the same, as in "Ich wasche mich" = "I wash myself"

Accusative	Dative
mich - myself	mir - to/for myself
dich - yourself	dir - to/for yourself
sich - himself/herself/itself/oneself	sich - to/for himself/herself/itself/oneself
uns - ourselves	uns - to/for ourselves
euch - yourselves	euch - to/for yourselves
sich - yourself/yourselves (formal)	sich - to/for yourself/yourselves
sich - themselves	sich - to/for themselves

[edit] Indefinite pronouns

[edit] the pronoun "man"

Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
man - one/you/they	einen - one/you/them	einem - to/for one/you/them	sein - one's/your/their

[edit] Attributive adjectives

Predicate adjectives are undeclined.^[5] Other adjectives use the following declension patterns.

[edit] Strong inflection^[6][7]

This is used when there is no preceding article.

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	-er	-en	-em	-en
Neuter	-es	-es	-em	-en
Feminine	-e	-e	-er	-er
Plural	-e	-e	-en	-er

[edit] Weak inflection^[6][7]

This is used when there is a preceding definite article ("der-word"). These include jen- ("that, those"), solch- ("such a"), manch- ("many, some"), jed- ("each, every"), all- ("all"), dies- ("this, these"), and welch- ("which").

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	-e	-en	-en	-en
Neuter	-e	-e	-en	-en
Feminine	-e	-e	-en	-en
Plural	-en	-en	-en	-en

[edit] Mixed inflection^[6]

This is used when there is a preceding ein-word (i.e. words like mein, dein, sein, kein etc.) or one that declines alike (like unser for example).

	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Gen.
Masculine	-er	-en	-en	-en
Neuter	-es	-es	-en	-en
Feminine	-e	-e	-en	-en
Plural	-en	-en	-en	-en

Mixed inflection is same as weak inflection, except bold suffixes (masculine nominative, neuter nominative and accusative) that are same as strong inflection.

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 55
2. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 58
3. ^ ^{a b} Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 209
4. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 213
5. ^ Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 169
6. ^ ^{a b c} Canoo guide to adjective inflection
7. ^ ^{a b} Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Third Edition, p. 170

[edit] See also

• Archaic Dutch declension