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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 clause
The clause is a grammatical unit that consists of at least one finite verb type and the complements this verb requires, depending on its valency.
Example |
Das Kind hat Angst. |
It is possible that a clause includes verb arguments that are optional.
Example |
Das Kind unserer Nachbarn hat seit dem Autounfall auf der Autobahn große Angst vor Fahrzeugen. |
In the German language, clauses that include one finite verb type are called simple clauses.
When more than one finite verb types exist in a clause, this clause is called complex.
A complex sentence consists of at least two clauses which are
1. either coordinate :
Examples | |
main clause + main clause | Ich leihe dir das Geld, aber du gibst es mir morgen zurück. |
subordinate clause + subordinate clause | MC, weil er keine Lust hatte und weil er müde war. |
2. or subordinate :
Examples | |
main clause + subordinate clause | Er vertraut ihm nicht, obwohl er sein bester Freund ist. |
subordinate clause + subordinate clause | MC, dass er nicht kommen kann, weil er krank ist. |
The difference between the main clause and the subordinate clause is that the former can stand alone in speech, while the latter cannot. A subordinate clause always depends on another clause.
Clauses are classified in the following categories, according to the meaning the speaker intends to convey:
Examples | |
declarative clauses | Patrick besucht uns morgen. |
interrogative clauses | Besucht uns Patrick morgen? |
imperative clauses | Besuch uns morgen! |
optative clauses | Wenn uns Patrick doch morgen besuchen würde! |
exclamative clauses | Ah, Patrick besucht uns morgen! |
According to the place of the verb in the clause, they are categorized in
Examples | verb place | |
Kernsatz | Patrick besucht uns morgen. | second place |
Stirnsatz | Besucht uns Patrick morgen? | first place |
Spannsatz | dass Patrick uns morgen besucht. | final place |
A clause consists of several parts that are called clause constituents. They include one or more words and are: the subject, the predicate, the object, the adverbials.
The various types of sentence structure indicate which constituents are necessary for building a sentence, while word order indicates the syntactic order of the constituents within the sentence.
Finally, in Negation we will be dealing with the ways to express denial of the clause content.