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WORD GRAMMAR
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Verb
- Conjugation in indicative
- Person and number
- Tenses
- Voice
- Mood
- Verb categories
- Valency
- Semantic categories of verbs
- Finite / non-finite verb forms
- Noun
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Article
- Pronoun
- Preposition
- Conjunction
- Particle
- Interjection
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Verb
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SENTENCE GRAMMAR
- Clause types
- Complex clauses
- Constituents of a sentence
- Sentence structure
- Word order in a sentence
- Negation
The personal pronouns
HA1
Personal pronouns indicate the three grammatical persons. They are inflected according to person, number and case. In the third person singular they are additionally inflected according to gender.
Example 1 | |||
Ich
|
kann |
euch
|
das Buch nicht leihen. |
1. person
|
2. person
|
||
singular
|
plural
|
||
nominative
|
dative
|
||
Example 2 | |||
Ihr
|
habt |
ihn
|
gestern besucht. |
2. person
|
3. person
|
||
plural
|
singular
|
||
nominative
|
accusative
|
||
masculine
|
Personal pronouns are inflected as follows.
singular
|
|||||
1. person
|
2. person
|
3. person
|
|||
masculine
|
feminine
|
neuter
|
|||
nominative |
ich
|
du
|
er
|
sie
|
es
|
genitive* |
meiner
|
deiner
|
seiner
|
ihrer
|
seiner
|
dative |
mir
|
dir
|
ihm
|
ihr
|
ihm
|
accusative |
mich
|
dich
|
ihn
|
sie
|
es
|
plural
|
|||||
1. person
|
2. person
|
3. person
|
|||
nominative |
wir
|
ihr
|
sie
|
||
genitive* |
unser
|
euer
|
ihrer
|
||
dative |
uns
|
euch
|
ihnen
|
||
accusative |
uns
|
euch
|
sie
|
* Genitive types are rarely used.
Note 1
First-person personal pronouns indicate the speaker, second-person pronouns indicate the person being addressed and third-person pronouns a person other than the speaker and the person being addressed. First-person and second-person personal pronouns refer to people but third-person personal pronouns may or may not refer to people (but also to animals, abstract ideas etc.).
Example | |||||
Mein Vater | hat | einen neuen Wagen | gekauft. |
nouns
|
|
Er
|
hat |
ihn
|
gestern gekauft. |
third-person personal pronoun
|
|
person
|
not a person
|
When using a third-person personal pronoun, it is possible that a noun, which has already been mentioned, is omitted.
Note 2
In the German language, the formal/polite and the informal/familiar types can be used in the second person. The formal/polite type is always written with a capital first letter and is usually used when addressing an adult. It expresses politeness, respect or lack of intimacy/familiarity.
Examples | |
Peter, was hälst du davon, dass wir eine Band gründen? | informal/familiar type of address |
Herr Meier, möchten Sie einen Kaffee trinken? | formal/polite type of address |
In the following table the informal/familiar types and the formal/polite types are presented, in the singular and the plural number. One can easily conclude that the formal/polite types are identical both in the singular and the plural, which means that they remain unchanged, independent of the number of people that are being addressed (one or more).
formal/polite type of address
|
informal/familiar type of address
|
|||
singular / plural
|
singular
|
plural
|
||
Sie
|
du
|
ihr
|
nominative | |
Ihrer
|
deiner
|
euer
|
genitive * | |
Ihnen
|
dir
|
euch
|
dative | |
Sie
|
dich
|
euch
|
accusative |
* Genitive types are rarely used.
Note 3
The pronoun es has a range of functions wider than those of a personal pronoun. For this reason, it will be introduced separately.