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. 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. English, Spanish, French). As a result, German can take a much more fluid approach to word order without the meaning being obscured. In English, a simple sentence must be written in strict word order (ex. John sees Mary). This sentence cannot be expressed in any other word order than how it is written here without substituting one word with a synonym. 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.
Contents
- Definite article
- Indefinite article
- Adjectival pronouns
- Nouns
- Personal pronouns
- Interrogative pronouns
- Possessive pronouns
- Demonstrative pronouns
- Reflexive pronouns
- Predicate adjectives
- Attributive adjectives
- Strong inflection
- Weak inflection
- Mixed inflection
- Undeclined geographic attributive words
- References
As a fusional language, German marks nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives to distinguish case, number, and gender. For example, all German adjectives have several different forms. 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. English completely lacks such declensions, meaning that an adjective can be written in only one form.
Modern High German distinguishes between four cases—nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative—and three grammatical genders—feminine, masculine, and neuter. 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. 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. 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"). 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"). Historically, these and several further plural inflections recall the noun declension classes of Proto-Germanic, but in much reduced form.
Definite article
The definite articles (der, etc.) correspond to the English "the".
Indefinite article
The indefinite articles (ein, etc.) correspond to English "a", "an". Note: ein is also a numeral which corresponds to English "one" (i.e. 1).
Ein has no plural; as in English, the plural indefinite article is void, as in "There are cows in the field." ("Es sind Kühe auf dem Felde.").
Adjectival pronouns
Certain adjectival pronouns also decline like der: all-, dies-, jed-, jen-, manch-, solch-, welch-. These are sometimes referred to as der-words.
The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:
Examples:
Adjectival possessive pronouns (or possessive determiners) and kein decline similarly to the article ein. The general declension pattern is as shown in the following table:
Examples:
Euer is slightly irregular: when it has an ending, the e can be dropped and endings are added to the root eur-, e.g. dative masculine eurem (also euerem).
Nouns
Only the following nouns are declined according to case:
There is a dative singular marking -e associated with strong masculine or neuter nouns, e.g. der Tod and das Bad, but this is rarely regarded as a specific ending in contemporary usage, with the exception of fossilized phrases, such as zum Tode verurteilt ("sentenced to death"), or titles of creative works, e.g. Venus im Bade ("Venus in the Bath"): In these cases, the omission of the ending would be unusual.
Personal pronouns
Genitive case for personal pronouns is currently considered archaic and is used only in certain archaic expressions like "ich bedarf seiner" (I need him). This is not to be confused with possessive adjectives.
Note that "er" and "sie" can refer to any masculine or feminine noun, not just persons.
Interrogative pronouns
- 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").
Possessive pronouns
Possessive pronouns are treated as articles in German and decline the same way as kein; see Indefinite article above.
Demonstrative pronouns
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 normally show similar behavior, although it is sometimes possible to place the object at the front of a sentence for similar emphasis, as in: "Him I see, but I don't see John".
The table is the same as for relative pronouns.
Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are used when a subject and object are the same, as in Ich wasche mich "I wash myself".
The pronoun man refers to a generic person, and is usually translated as one (or generic you). It is equivalent to the French pronoun on.
Predicate adjectives
Predicate adjectives (e.g. kalt in mir ist kalt "I am cold") are undeclined.
Attributive adjectives
Attributive adjectives use the following declension patterns.
Strong inflection
Strong declension is used when
Here is an example.
Note that the ending for genitive masculine and neuter is -en. This is a source of confusion for learners, who typically assume it is -es, and also native speakers, who interpret some of the less common definite articles (e.g. jed-) as adjectives with no article, to be declined strongly.
Weak inflection
Weak declension is used when the article itself clearly indicates case, gender, and number.
Mixed inflection
Mixed declension is used when there is a preceding indefinite article (e.g. ein-, kein-), or possessive determiner (mein-, dein-, ihr-, etc.).
Mixed inflection is the same as weak inflection, except for the masculine nominative, neuter nominative and accusative, that are the same as strong inflection.
Undeclined geographic attributive words
Many German locality names have an attributive word associated with them which ends in -er, for example Berliner for Berlin and Hamburger for Hamburg, which are not marked for case but always end in -er. Die Berliner Mauer (‘the Berlin Wall’) and das Brandenburger Tor (‘the Brandenburg Gate’) are prominent examples of this. Note the -er ending despite the neuter gender of the word Tor. If the place name ends in -en, like Göttingen, the -er usually replaces the terminal -en.