Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)

On Fri, 6 Jun 2003 15:43:19 +0200, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

Hello everybody, :-)

>I think the problem that never disappears for most non-native speakers
>are mistakes with the determiners and the adjective endings.  The
>latter seem to be very, very hard it remember.  My theory is that the
>discrepancy between number of grammatical positions and number of
>endings is simply too confusing:
>
*hehehe*
Yes, the good old troubles with the adjective inflection! ;-)

I see the following areas of distinction:
1)   3 Genders+plural (=4 variations)
2)   4 cases
3)   3 modes of definiteness
3.1) definite (with preceding definite article)
3.2) indifinite (with indefinite article preciding)
3.3) semantic definiteness (through context and not by article)

What I call semantic definiteniss here is simply the form
without any article. Thus, the definite/indefinite distinction
will be made by the listener depending on whether he does or
does not know the mentioned item. Adverbs like "manch" give
strong hints towards indefiniteness.

Thus, we have 4*4*3 (=48) inflected adjective forms and one
uninflected adverbial form. Together, 49 forms of the german
adjective have to be mastered - quite a lot, for sure! ;-)

Let's look at the example of "deliciously spicy meat".

The words which I will use:
delicious="köstlich"
spicy="würzig"
meat="Fleisch"
laudable="lobenswert"

SINGULAR examples:

Nominative definite: das köstlich würzige Fleisch
Nominative indefinite: ein köstlich würziges Fleisch
Nominative sem. definite: köstlich würziges Fleisch
or: manch köstlich würziges Fleisch
or with another adverb: lobenswert köstlich würziges Fleisch
Genitive definite: des köstlich würzigen Fleisches
Genitive indefinite: eines köstlich würzigen Fleisches
Genitive sem. definite: köstlich würzigen Fleisches
or with adverb "manch": manch köstlich würzigen Fleisches
or with another adverb: lobenswert köstlich würzigen Fleisches
Dative definite: dem köstlich würzigen Fleisch(e)
Dative indefinite: einem köstlich würzigen Fleisch(e)
Dative sem. definite: köstlich würzigem Fleisch(e)
or with adverb "manch": manch köstlich würzigem Fleisch(e)
or with another adverb: lobenswert köstlich würzigem Fleisch(e)
Accusative definite: das köstlich würzige Fleisch
Accusative indefinite: ein köstlich würziges Fleisch
Accusative sem.definite: köstlich würziges Fleisch
or with adverb "manch": manch köstlich würziges Fleisch
or with another adverb: lobenswert köstlich würziges Fleisch

Phew... what a list!!!! Notably, the accusative without an
article resembles the nominative inflection.

I am afraid that this exhaustive (sort of) specification of
the German adjective actually could keep some people from
learning the language as a whole. *gggggggg*

All the best on a friendly day and cheers,
Harald
:-)