Uhh, I shouldnÂ’t have tried to show off. by
Hieronymus Graubart
on 2015-01-13 13:04:00 UTC
Reply
No, it’s not like "this here and that over there"; the example just coincidentally looks like it might be.
Essentially, it’s more than a dozen variations of the article "the", depending on grammatical gender and depending on whether the article is applied to the subject or to the object – and which kind of object – of a sentence.
Firstly, we have three grammatical genders, which may or may not correspond to biological gender:
The man – der Mann (definitely male)
The woman – die Frau (definitely female)
The child – das Kind (gender is unknown, irrelevant or just not specified)
The men – die Männer (the plural form of the article looks like the female form, but is something different and doesn’t depend on gender)
Secondly, these are only the nominative forms of the article; there are also:
The man’s coat – der Mantel des Mannes (male subject, male genitive object, genitive objects are generally an answer to the question "whose?")
The woman’s coat – der Mantel der Frau (the female genitive article looks like the male nominative article, but is something different)
The child’s coat – der Mantel des Kindes (the neutral genitive article looks like the male genitive article)
The men’s coat – der Mantel der Männer (the plural genitive article looks like the female genitive article, and this single coat is collective property because I don’t want to bother you with another plural)
The coat belongs to the man – Der Mantel gehört dem Mann (male subject, male dative object, dative objects are generally answers to the question “to whom?”)
The coat belongs to the woman – Der Mantel gehört der Frau (the female dative article again looks like the male nominative article, but is something different)
The coat belongs to the child – Der Mantel gehört dem Kind (the neutral dative article again looks like the male dative article)
The coat belongs to the men – Der Mantel gehört den Männern (the plural dative article looks like the male accusative article shown below)
Ginny kissed the man – Ginny küsste den Mann (male accusative object, accusative objects are generally answers to the question “whom?”)
Harry kissed the woman – Harry küsste die Frau (the female accusative article looks like the female nominative article)
Molly kissed the child – Molly küsste das Kind (the neutral accusative article looks like the neutral nominative article)
Molly kissed the children – Molly küsste die Kinder (the plural accusative article looks like the plural nominative article)
So these are the basics, and then some confusion arises, because many animals of unspecified biological gender acquire a default grammatical gender, like:
The dog – der Hund is always male, unless she is die Hündin (specifically female, not a slur in German)
The cat – die Katze is always female, unless he is der Kater (specifically male)
But the pig – das Schwein is grammatically neutral, unless it is either the boar – der Eber (specifically male) or the sow – die Sau (specifically female).
To increase confusion, things and abstract concepts aren’t all neutral; their grammatical gender is quite arbitrary, like:
The exit – der Ausgang (male)
The door – die Tür (female)
The gate – das Tor (neutral)
And there are additional rules and exceptions I habitually apply, but don’t remember exactly, like the usage with certain prepositions indicating current location or target location in the original example.
There is a lot to learn. I hope I didn’t discourage you.
HG