Talk:German sentence structure

Comments
It was I who did the edit 06:37, 19 March 2006 84.58.192.147 (→Relative clauses - "wo" in spoken language). I did not realise that i was not logged in anymore. --Thomasnimmesgern 06:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

At the moment, this reads like it belongs in "Wikibooks". Wikipedia is not a "how to guide" - the article could do with being "encyclopedized" i.e. descriptive not instructive. It certainly shouldn't contain "you", addressed to the reader! TheGrappler 18:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I added the missing "Frau" word in "Relative clauses" section. Mix7 15:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Asking for subject or object
''"Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft" (You bought your wife a red ring) - "Welchen Roten hast du deiner Frau gekauft?" (Which red one did you buy your wife?)'' It seems to me that this question works in German only as the short form of "Welchen roten Ring hast du deiner Frau gekauft?", meaning "roten" would not be capitalized as "Ring" is simply omitted in speach. "Roten" capitalized suggests to me a name, at the most a wine. However, my Duden did not yield an answer as to which form would be correct. Can someone else please look it up and correct it if I'm right? --KagamiNoMiko 20:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I try to explain it. Capitalized or not You can use an adjectiv in German as a noun. But it depends on the structure of the whole text if it be written capitalized or not: ... roten Ring ... der rote ... Not capalized, because the word is used in the same paragraph or sentence.

... roter Ring... NEW PARAGRAPH ... der Rote ... Capitalized because of the new paragraph.

Why? I don't know! I learnd it that way in school.

Meaning and use of "Roten" This depends on the focus of the speaker. "Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. Welchen roten hast du deiner Frau gekauft?" In this question it's important for the one who asked which sort of red ring was bought. Important here is the colour of the ring and that there were different sorts of red rings sold.

"Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. Welchen hast du gekauft?" Here the colour is unimportant only the sort is of interest.
 * Yes, but see, you asked "Welchen roten..." - uncapitalized - too! If you don't know you're talking about a ring, the question simply makes no sense. If you somehow only caught part of the sentence, only knowing about a red something, you'd ask "Du hast deiner Frau einen roten was gekauft?" (Which probably is not a grammatically correct sentence, but it is used like this.) Argh, I need a grammar book... I'm going on instinct here, and though my instinct is usually right when it comes to spelling and grammar, that is not always the case... Anyway, I think the question here is: Are we dealing with an adjectiv or a noun (Adjektiv oder substantiviertes Adjektiv)? --KagamiNoMiko 07:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * ETA: My sister suggested the question "Was hast du deiner Frau Rotes gekauft?", which would indeed be the question to ask if you had no information about the object other than its color. --KagamiNoMiko 19:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If the reader knows, which noun the adjective refers to, it is not capitalized. So: "Du hast deiner Frau einen roten Ring gekauft. Welchen roten hast du gekauft?" But if the noun is unknown, like in "Was hast du deiner Frau Rotes gekauft?", you have to capitalize the adjective. --213.33.24.72 17:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly - but which is the case here? --KagamiNoMiko 19:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I would avoid this by replacing noun and adjective with "was": "Was hast du deiner Frau gekauft".Ego fui (talk) 09:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

something seems to be missed
What kind of word-order-struction does the german has? is it (like english) subject-verb-object or something different? a question that is not answered within this article directly... (corect is: it is subject-object-verb.)--139.18.180.50 15:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC).
 * You seem to have German and Latin mixed up. ;) The order is, generally speaking, subject-verb-object, but this isn't fixed. A German sentence can be mixed up, for example to emphasize certain parts. So there's no general rule. --KagamiNoMiko 14:39, 10 May 2007 (UT

A way to form your sentences: Sv1TOMPv2 S: subject v1: 1st verb O: object M: manner P:place v2: 2nd verb

Since we have a Flexionsystem (der,dessen,dem,den) you can mix up the word order, thats why you need this static word order in english because you cannot see at the article "the" if its a subject or object. Here an example from the english grammar page of wiki: Der Mann wirft den Ball dem Hund zu. (Subjekt-Akkusativobjekt-Dativobjekt) Der Mann wirft dem Hund den Ball zu. (Subjekt-Dativobjekt-Akkusativobjekt) Dem Hund wirft der Mann den Ball zu. (Dativobjekt-Subjekt-Akkusativobjekt) Den Ball wirft der Mann dem Hund zu. (Akkusativobjekt-Subjekt-Dativobjekt) (Deutsch: „dem“ indicates Dativ, „den“ Akkusativ, „der“ Nominativ)) The man throws the dog the ball. (indirektes Objekt zuerst) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.57.72.38 (talk) 13:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, in English (at least as we learned it) Subject-verb-object is definitely an order, an order that admits of exceptions but an order. Guess what crib was used for this... Straßenverkehrsordnung ("Road traffic ordinance"). One for the stereotype. If we talk about the same thing in German, we should remember that it was never meant to be anything else but statistics. There are some orders unusual in general, and with these we speak of inversions, as (if I think about it) with objects; but it is no inversion, just maybe less often used, to begin it with an adverbial such as "am Freitag". --91.34.224.223 (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I still feel that this page just lists a whole lot of specific situations, but no general rule or feel for the sentence structure. In your examples, I see that the verb is always the second constituent, and that they all end in "zu". Things like this are clearly indicative of some general rules. AndreRD (talk) 14:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Word Order
Clearly **German is not a OV language;** the quoted Haider "can be characterised as the leader of the minority party" according toa book review. . **German main clauses follow the V2 pattern** which appears as SVO if the subject is first ("Ich kaufe ein Auto"). See the German Wikipedia article https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2-Stellung#Abgrenzung_vom_Wortstellungsmuster_SVO which appears well written. This statement is plain wrong and confuses people, as can be seen in this Stack Exchange discussion (which brought me here): https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/65369/is-german-a-vo-language-or-an-ov-language.Peter.A.Schneider (talk) 23:34, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Niemand hat die Absicht, [eine Mauer zu errichten].
 * Nobody has the intention [to build a wall].
 * The German infinitive is obviously OV, while the English one is VO. 2A0A:A541:A0C:0:FD98:DBF1:CF04:1453 (talk) 13:02, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

A normal statement is quite simple to construct. First the Subject, then the conjugated verb, at last the rest of the infinitive without this verb.

"Ein Text" - "geschrieben werden" - "Ein Text wird geschrieben" (A text - to be written - a text is being written [or: a text is going to be written])

This is NOT Subject-Verb-Object. Its passive Voice and so "Ein Text" is the Object, the same as in English "A Text is being written (by ...)" A Text cant do anything. The Author writes the text and not vice versa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.57.84.255 (talk) 12:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This sentence contains only subject and verb, that's why it's confusing. Yes, it is passive, but "A text" is still the subject of the sentence structure. Subject and verb is the shortest possible structure. There can be no sentence without either. Object - verb isn't possible. --KagamiNoMiko (talk) 14:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There are sentences without (a real) subject in German, e.g. "Mir ist warm", "Es ist heute kalt draußen" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.57.42.111 (talk) 21:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In these cases, "mir" and "es" are the subjects. Though I agree those are borderline cases; it's weird to ask for a subject with "wem". But I'm pretty sure they do still count as subjects, though I admit it's been a long time since I learned sentence structure in school. I'd suggest getting out a grammar book (if you have one? I don't think I do, unless the Duden covers this) and checking. --KagamiNoMiko (talk) 09:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Why are you all so keen on the Duden. It just covers spelling. And im getting sick if i read obviously wrong phrases in the Duden, e.g. "Da werden sie geholfen" is in it, a German advertisment slogan. It really has been loosing quality, in my opinion. The things i wrote above are called "Nullsubjekt" and "Scheinsubjekt".
 * Well, mir is definitely not a subject as it is a dative; and while es may be called subject (and then fall away, as "mir ist kalt" equates "Es ist mir kalt"), es can even be inserted to the front of a sentence which contains a subject, so we could also call it a fill-word. As in: Es kam ein Engel hell und klar von Gott aufs Feld zur Hirtenschar etc. In that case, es does not mean a thing at all. --93.133.221.14 (talk) 10:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Grammer mistakes
There are several cases where the grammer is wrong. I have striked through a couple of mistakes, I Found, under Relative clauses. I am a bit new at this, so someone needs to go through the whole page and look for faulty grammer.(I might do it, though.)


 * "Der Mann, dessen Auto auf der Straße parkt" ('' The man whose car is parked on the street The man who parks the car on the street. Sydseter (talk) 16:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The original English sentence is correct.

Mistake
In the first section, there is a mistake "Ich" - "den Müll wegwerfen" (I / throw away the rubbish) "Ich werfe den Müll weg" (statement) (I'm throwing away the rubbish) In German, there is only one way to phrase the sentence I am throwing away the rubbish, or I throw away the rubbish. "Ich werfe den Müll weg" is proper. "Ich den Müll wegwerfen" suggests future tense, as in "Ich werde den Müll wegwerfen", or another tense that I cannot think of right now but I am pretty sure is there.ItsJodo (talk) 22:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I would say that this wasn't intended to be a sentence. "Den Müll wegwerfen" is an infinite verbal phrase and it can be combined with the subject "ich" to form the finite clause "Ich werfe den Müll weg."
 * I think that it is even possible to use an infinite clause with subject, in special context. "Kannst du für mich den Müll wegwerfen?" "Ich deinen Müll wegwerfen? Nein" Universal-Interessierter de (talk (de)) 19:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Project?
As far as the discussion page shows, this page is not claimed responsibility for by any Portal, yet considering the style of all articles on the navigation box I have read so far, this should probably be the case. Should this as well as the other articles regarding the German language be tagged for the Portal:Languages ?--91.6.9.151 (talk) 17:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sentence Structure
I don't agree with the list that lays out the typical order of German sentences. It does not take in consideration the differences between Accusative and Dative Pronouns compared to Accusative and Dative nouns. For example: Pronouns come before nouns regardless of what case they are in. This list is therefore confusing because using the information given, one would possible put the accusative pronoun after the dative noun. Mochattez 07:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mochattez (talk • contribs)

"wo" as a relative pronoun
"and then, in Northern German slang, to all relative clauses:

Der Mann, wo bei Siemens arbeitet, hat an der Technischen Universität studiert. "The man where works at Siemens's has graduated from the Technical University."

Southern Germans never use this form, but they have constructed a double form "der wo, die wo, das wo" which is almost necessary in their dialect. "Wo" may here be replaced by "was", which for undiscoverable reasons seems to occur mostly in the feminine genus."

Southern Germans do use the pure "wo" form extensively, namely in Baden-Württemberg and the Swabian dialect areas of Bavaria (check it out!). Plus, the assertion that the alternative "der/die/das was" is used mostly in the feminine form is completely unfounded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.251.8.106 (talk) 14:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah yeah, a mistake of mine. Of course I mistook Bavarian for South German, in general. It is true that in Bavaria, "wo" never replaces a normal relative clause, while adding it after the correct relative pronoun is all but mandatory (but not correct Standard speech of course). It can be replaced by "was". The assertion that the alternative is mostly used in the feminine is unfounded, yes. It is an impression of mine which I guess you'd hear much approval about from Bavarian speakers.--151.100.102.161 (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

More complicated sentence structures.
It would be nice if information about some more complicated sentence structures was included. For example, two main sentences joined together with a comma, or sentences with one subject and two main verbs, etc. I know that there is no way to include everything in Duden - Die Grammatik, but adding a few examples of sentences from normal German newspapers would be a great help for anyone trying to translate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.93.37 (talk) 02:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

TeKaMoLo
Should this page include the TeKaMoLo rule ("Temporal, Kausal, Modal, Local" = time-cause-manner-place) for the order in which such information ("adpositional phrases") is presented in a German sentence?

The German convention is distinctive, and far more absolute, than the relative freedom that goes in English.

Various websites present this, eg this is an early Google hit and heavier-weight references could no doubt be found.
 * https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-sentence-structure/

It is touched on a bit at Time–manner–place, at the general level that some languages can have strong conventions of this kind. But I think it would be useful to make a thorough presentation here, as it applies to German. Jheald (talk) 19:58, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This rule might apply or be useful in many cases, but German sentence structure is not so strict and sometimes TeKaMoLo could even produce sentences that would sound a bit strange for native speakers. I once started a discussion about this question on German Wikipedia de:Wikipedia:Auskunft/Archiv/2022/Woche 19. We had no final conclusion about rules for the positioning of German Adverbials, but there was a consensus that it varies for emphasis. One also has to distinguish between known and new information, to form a correct German sentence in context.
 * Another thing I want to say: Pronominal objects (especially reflexives) and some adverbials can or even should be placed between the finite verb and the subject. -- Universal-Interessierter de (talk (de)) 22:43, 27 December 2022 (UTC)