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This article discusses the grammar of the German language, focussing on Standard German.

Declension

Every German noun is assigned one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Unlike English, which does not assign a gender to most nouns, the gender of a German noun and the gender of the thing to which the noun refers often differ. For example, in German, a stone (ein Stein) is masculine, whereas a girl (das Mädchen) is neuter. Thus, the gender of a noun mainly depends on its nominative ending, not on its real sex. This is called "grammatical gender" a feature of many other languages, such as French. "Mädchen", for example, is the diminutive form of an archaic feminine German noun die Magd, meaning "young woman", and diminutives ending in -chen always take the neuter. The masculine equivalent of die Magd is der Junge ("the young man"), and is still in common use with meaning equivalent to "guy, boy". Its equivalent diminutive is the neuter form das Jüngelchen, which is seldom used and implies the connotations of "sissy wimp".

The German language has both singular and plural numbers.

The cases are the nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. The case of a particular noun, and therefore the ending used for the noun, depends on the grammatical function of the noun in the sentence.

Nominative: The subject of a sentence, the thing doing the action
Accusative: The direct object, the thing which is directly receiving the action, or the object of certain prepositions
Dative: The indirect object, as in when an object is given to someone, or the object of certain other prepositions
Genitive: The possessor of something.

Certain prepositions have objects either in dative or accusative, depending on whether the verb implies motion.

It is important to note that the inflected form of an adjective not only depends on its gender, but also on the kind of article used (or not used) with it, definite or indefinite.

The genitive case is becoming less common in spoken German. People often substitute the dative case for the genitive in conversation. The genitive case remains standard in written communication.

Nominal (or Noun) Phrases

(The content of this section is not yet applicable for proper names.)

A German nominal phrase, in general, consists of the following components in the following order:
article, number (cardinal or ordinal), adjective(s), noun, genitive attribute, position(s), relative clause reflexive pronoun

"Die dritte umwerfende Vorstellung des Schillerdramas in dieser Woche in Hamburg"

(the third stunning performance of the drama by Schiller this week in Hamburg)

Of course, most noun phrases are not this complicated; adjectives, numbers, genitive attributes, positions, relative clauses and emphasizers are always optional.

A nominal phrase contains at least a cardinal number, an adjective, a pronoun, or a noun. It always has an article, except if it is an indefinite plural noun or refers to an uncountable mass.

"Die Drei" (the three of them)
"Der Große" (the tall man)
"Der Mann" (the man)

If the noun is uncountable, an article is not used; otherwise, the meaning of the sentence changes.

"Ich kaufe billiges Bier" (I buy cheap beer)
"Ich kaufe ein billiges Bier" (I buy a bottle of cheap beer)
"Ich habe Geld" (I have money)
"Ich habe das Geld" (I have the money) or (I have enough money to...)

A nominal phrase can be regarded a single unit. It has a case, a number, and a gender. Case and number depend on the context, whereas the gender is determined by the main noun.

The word "selbst" or "selber" may be added in order to emphasize the nominal phrase, but this is becoming increasingly uncommon in spoken German.

"Der Chef selbst hat ihn gefeuert" (the boss himself fired him)

The genitive attribute

A nominal phrase may have a genitive phrase, for example to express possession. This genitive attribute may be seen as merely another nominal phrase in the genitive case which may hang off another nominal phrase.

"Der Beruf des alten Mannes" (The old man's profession)
"Die Hütte des Häuptlings des Stammes" (The hut of the chief of the tribe)

(genitive phrase has its own genitive phrase). This is uncommon in modern German, one would say: "Die Hütte des Stammeshäuptlings" (The hut of the tribe's chief)

In old German, the "genitive attribute" can be a pronoun put in the genitive case. In modern German, this is uncommon; the corresponding possessive pronoun is used instead.

OLD: "Die Gnade seiner" (his grace)

NEW: "Seine Gnade"

Position

A nominal phrase may contain a "position phrase"; this may be seen as merely another nominal phrase with a preposition (or postposition) or a pronominal adverb (See Adverbial phrases).

"Eine Wolke am Himmel" (a cloud in the sky)
"Der Bundeskanzler während des Bürgerkriegs im Kongo" (the Chancellor during the civil war in the Congo)

(position phrase has its own position phrase)

"Der Regen im Dschungel im Sommer" (the rain in the jungle in the summer)

(Several position phrases)

"Der Berg dort" (that mountain over there)

Relative clause

A nominal phrase will often have a relative clause.

Nouns

A German noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and belongs to one of three declensions. These features remain unaltered by inflection but must be considered in this process. The grammatical gender influences articles, adjectives and pronouns. Note that gender and sex differ in many cases, as mentioned above.

Number (singular, plural) and case (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive) must be taken into account in the process of declension.

The declension can be more difficult than in other languages such as Latin; not only the word ending, but also the root may be altered by inflecting.

Articles and article-like words

Articles have a feature called "strength", which influences the declension of the adjectives. There are strong articles, weak articles, and articles that have strong and weak cases. Sometimes this feature is not constant in daily use.

The inflected forms depend on the number, the case and the gender of the corresponding noun. Articles have the same plural forms for all three genders.

Indefinite article endings (mixed)

             Masculine  Neuter Feminine  Plural
Nominative   -0-        -0-    -e        -e
Accusative   -en        -0-    -e        -e
Dative       -em        -em    -er       -en
Genitive     -es        -es    -er       -er

This table declines the indefinite article (mixed) (ein-), the negative indefinite article (mixed) (kein-), and the possessive pronouns (mixed) (mein-, dein-, sein-, ihr-, unser-, euer/eur-).
The indefinite article doesn't have a specific plural form (like English, but unlike Italian); there are several article words for this need. In most cases, however, these plural forms are left out. This is quite similar to English.

Definite article (strong)

             Masculine  Neuter Feminine  Plural
Nominative   der        das    die       die
Accusative   den        das    die       die
Dative       dem        dem    der       den
Genitive     des        des    der       der

Definite article endings (strong)

             Masculine  Neuter Feminine  Plural
Nominative   -er        -es    -e        -e
Accusative   -en        -es    -e        -e
Dative       -em        -em    -er       -en
Genitive     -es        -es    -er       -er

Note that this is essentially the same as the indefinite article table, but with the masculine nominative -er and the neuter nominative and accusative -es.
This table declines the demonstrative pronouns (dies-, jen-) (this, that; strong) and the relative pronoun (welch-) (which; strong)

Possessive "article-like" pronouns

Under some circumstances the regular possessive pronouns are replaced by the genitive forms of the pronouns derived from the definite article. They agree in number and gender with the possessor. Unlike other pronouns they carry no strength. Any adjective following them in the phrase will carry the strong endings.

There are possessive pronouns derived from the definite article and derived from the interrogative article. They have the same forms for all cases of the possessed word, but they are only rarely used in the genitive case.

Definite possessive [of the] (mixed)

Masculine: dessen
Neuter: dessen
Feminine: deren
Plural: deren

Interrogative possessive [of what] (mixed)

Masculine: wessen
Neuter: wessen
Feminine: wessen
Plural: wessen

NOT: Die Soldaten dessen Armee

In a rather ancient type of German, spoken until the 18th century, a genitive noun can be used instead of a possessive pronoun. This is occasionally found in very literary modern German, and sometimes hence used for facetious effect.

OLD: "Des Königs Krone" (The king's crown)

(MODERN: "Die Krone des Königs" - BUT: "Die Königskrone" (compound noun))

These pronouns are used if using the ordinary possessive pronoun is understood reflexively, or there are several possessors.

Cardinal numbers

Cardinal numbers are always placed before any adjectives. If the number is not very high, it is usually not combined with an indefinite plural article like "einige" or "mehrere". Personal pronouns of the first and second person are placed in front of numbers. Personal pronouns of the third person cannot be used with numbers.

"Drei Hunde" (three dogs)

"Die vier apokalyptischen Reiter" (the four horsemen of the Apocolypse)

NOT: "Einige fünf Äpfel" BUT: "Einige Äpfel" or "Fünf Äpfel" (some apples, five apples)

"Ein paar tausend Euro" (a couple of thousand euro)

"Wir vier" (the four of us)

If you use a cardinal number, you must use the plural form of the nominal phrase, in contrast to languages like Turkish.

NOT: "Zehn Pferd" (turk. "On At")

BUT: "Zehn Pferde" (ten horses)

EXCEPTION: "Zehn Bier", "Zehn Biere" (both possible in some cases like drinks)

Whereas there is a cardinal number meaning "one" in English, Germans use the indefinite article instead. The difference is expressed by the intonation.

"Ein rotes Buch" can mean

"a red book": ein rotes Buch; or

"one red book": ein rotes Buch

The numbers zwei (two) and drei (three) have endings for case in some cases. Where an adjective would have weak endings, numbers don't have endings. If an adjective had strong endings, these numbers may also have strong endings in the genitive case

"das Haus zweier junger Frauen" (two young women's house)

If there is no other word carrying the strong ending of the genitive plural, the numbers must carry it.

"die Reise dreier Schwestern" (three sisters' voyage)

If these numbers are centre of a nominal phrase in the dative plural and no other word carries case markers, they may carry dative endings.

"Ich habe zweien Bananen gegeben" (I've given bananas to two (of them))

Special case for One in German: One can be represented as : "eins", "eine", "einer", "eines", "einem" or "einen" depending on the sentence.

Adjectives

To correctly agree German adjectives, the case, number and gender of the nominal phrase must be considered along with the article of the noun.

Like articles, adjectives use the same plural endings for all three genders.

"Ein lauter Krach" (a loud noise)

"Der laute Krach" (the loud noise)

"Der große, schöne Mond" (the big, beautiful moon)

Participles may be used as adjectives and are treated in the same way.

In contrast to Romance languages, adjectives are only declined in the attributive position (that is, when used in nominal phrases to describe a noun directly). Predicative adjectives, separated from the noun by "to be", for example, are not declined and are indistinguishable from adverbs.

NOT: "Die Musik ist laute" BUT "Die Musik ist laut" ((the) music is loud)

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form and superlative form. In contrast to Latin or Italian, there is no grammatical feature for the absolute superlative (elative).

Pronouns

German pronouns of the first person refer to the speaker; those of the second person refer to an addressed person. The pronouns of the third person may be used to replace nominal phrases. These have the same gender, number and case as the original nominal phrase. This goes for other pronouns, too.

pronoun [position(s)] [selber|selbst] [relative clause]

Personal pronouns

            1st sg   2nd sg        3rd sg                    1st pl  2nd pl  3rd pl     formal
            "I"      "thou/you"    "he"     "she"   "it"     "we"    "you" "they"        "you"
Nominative  ich      du            er       sie     es       wir     ihr     sie          Sie
Accusative  mich     dich          ihn      sie     es       uns     euch    sie          Sie
Dative      mir      dir           ihm      ihr     ihm      uns     euch    ihnen        Ihnen
Genitive    mein(er) dein(er)      sein(er) ihr(er) sein(er) unser   euer    ihrer        Ihr

Adverbial phrases

Verbs

German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise. The only completely irregular verb in the language is "sein" (to be). However, textbooks for foreign learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are fewer than 200 strong and irregular verbs, and there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

Flavoring particles

Flavoring particles are a part of speech common to several Germanic languages but absent from English. These words affect the tone of a sentence instead of conveying a specific literal meaning. The two main flavoring particles in German are "doch" and "mal." Doch adds emphasis to a statement, sometimes verging on abruptness or rudeness. Mal softens a statement, making it more polite or more like a request.

The following statements, although identical in literal meaning, carry considerable differences in tone:

"Seien Sie mal ruhig." (formal, polite) (Please be quiet.)

"Sei doch ruhig." (informal, abrupt) (Shut up.)

Sentences

German sentence structure is somewhat more complex than in other languages, with phrases regularly inverted for both questions and subordinate phrases.

External links

German Grammar - a website made by a student with exercises for learning German grammar.
German Grammar - Toms Deutschseite - German grammar explained by a native speaker
German Verbs - Verb Conjugation Trainer
Learn German Grammar Online

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 *[http://www.deutschseite.de/ German Grammar] - Toms Deutschseite - German grammar explained by a native speaker
 *[http://www.verbs-online.com/ German Verbs] - Verb Conjugation Trainer
+*[http://learngerman.elanguageschool.net Learn German Grammar Online]
 ==See also==