PRONOUNS part2(§12 – §22) – LEARN TO SPEAK GERMAN

SHORTCUT TO PRONOUNS part1(§1 – §11)

§12 The plural of du is ihr, ‘my (two or more) good friends’. ihr, like the other personal

pronouns, appears in various forms according to its function in the sentence:
NOMINATIVE ihr
DATIVE euch
ACCUSATIVE euch
POSSESSIVE PRONOUN euer-
NOTE: When endings are added to euer-, the stem reduces to eur-:
Das ist euer_ Zimmer BUT: mit eurem Vater für eure Freunde

§13 SUMMARY: paradigms of personal pronouns, singular & plural
FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR PLURAL
NOMINATIVE ich wir

GENITIVE mein- unser-
DATIVE mir uns
ACCUSATIVE mich uns

SECOND PERSON
familiar polite
SINGULAR PLURAL SINGULAR PLURAL
NOMINATIVE du ihr Sie Sie
GENITIVE dein- eur- Ihr- Ihr-
DATIVE dir euch Ihnen Ihnen
ACCUSATIVE dich euch Sie Sie

   THIRD PERSON
  singular plurals
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER (ALL)
NOMINATIVE er sie es sie
GENITIVE sein- ihr- sein- ihr-
DATIVE ihm ihr ihm ihnen
ACCUSATIVE ihn sie es sie
§14  Like nouns, pronouns can be combined with prepositions, and personal

pronouns are no exception. Typical short phrases using dative and accusative

prepositions are
DATIVE ACCUSATIVE
mit uns für mich
bei ihr ohne ihn
von ihm gegen uns
zu Ihnen durch sie

Combinations of this sort are common when the pronouns refer to people.

When the pronouns refer to objects, they occur as the form da- in combination

with the preposition, with da- being the equivalent of English ‘it’ or ‘that’.
damit with it dafür for it, for that
dabei along with that dadurch through that, thereby
danach after that dagegen against that
davon from that
All prepositions are combined with da- without showing case.
If the preposition begins with a vowel, the first part of the da- construction

becomes dar-: daraus darum darin daran darüber
§15 Relative pronouns are pronouns that refer to a person or thing already mentioned.
Their equivalents in English are ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘that’, and ‘which’. As in English, they
come after the words they refer to (their antecedents) and stand at the beginning of a
relative clause.
ANTECEDENT↓ ↓RELATIVE PRONOUN
The fellow who wore the hat is my brother.
↑RELATIVE CLAUSE
FORM: Relative pronouns have the same forms as the demonstrative pronoun:
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER PLURAL

NOMINATIVE der die das die
GENITIVE dessen deren dessen deren
DATIVE dem der dem denen
ACCUSATIVE den die das die
USAGE: Relative pronouns establish a direct link between their antecedents and the
additional information supplied in their clause, and must occur in the same number and
gender as their antecedents. The case in which relative pronouns occur is

determined by their usage within the relative clause. The case of the antecedent is

irrelevant to the case of the relative pronoun. Because relative clauses are also
subordinate clauses, the finite verb is placed at the end of the clause.

nominative Das war der Junge, der immer so schön singt.
The relative pronoun is masculine and singular because Junge is

masculine and singular; it is nominative because it is the subject of singt,

the verb in its own clause.
genitive Die Frau, deren Hand meine Katze gebissen hat, heißt Marx.
The pronoun is feminine and singular because Frau is feminine and singular; it is
genitive because of possessive relationship between Frau and Hand.
dative Wo ist denn das Kind, dem ich die DM 20 gegeben habe?
The pronoun is neuter and singular because Kind is neuter and singular; it is dative
because it is the indirect object in its own clause: I gave the money to the child.
accusative Der Berg, den du siehst, heißt die Zugspitze.
The pronoun is masculine and singular because Berg is masculine and singular; it is
accusative because it is the direct object of du siehst.
NOTE: English often omits relative pronouns:
The man [] I saw The child [] I gave the money to
but relative pronouns must be used in all relative clauses in German

§16 All the pronouns you have seen so far are definite ones. They refer to real people or
things. There are a number of indefinite pronouns that do not refer to anyone or
anything specific: man, jemand, niemand, nichts, etwas, and alles.

§17 The most important of these pronouns is man, the equivalent of ‘one, people, they, you’
in English. If speakers of North American English used the word ‘one’ as a pronoun
very often, the correspondence would be clear. But we have a variety of colorful ways
of avoiding ‘one’ on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
People aren’t as nice as they used to be.
They say it’s going to rain tomorrow.
You just can’t get a good cigar anymore.
All of these homespun expressions have equivalents using man in German. But this
pronoun is by no means confined to casual conversation down at the courthouse
square. Man, which is derived from der Mann, refers to any person of either sex, and
is always accompanied by a third person singular verb:
Man muß nicht lange auf die Straßenbahn warten.
Man is used in generalizations and never refers to someone specific. Often a sentence
with man replaces one in which the passive voice or an infinitive phrase is used:

Das wird leicht gemacht. That’s easily done.
Das ist leicht zu machen. That’s easy to do.
Das kann man leicht machen. You can do that easily.
Das macht man leicht. You do that easily.
Man is often used prescriptively:
So etwas tut man einfach nicht! You just don’t do something like that!
Man nimmt die Gabel in die linke Hand. You take your fork in your left Hand.

§18 Jemand and niemand contain the word man, and both also refer to people.
Jemand issimply ‘someone or other’ — the identification of a single human being,
rather than ‘they, people’, as the source of the action. Both pronouns, like man,
are used with third person singular verb forms.

Jemand hat das Fenster aufgemacht. Someone opened the window.
(It wasn’t the wind.)
Niemand is the opposite of jemand, ‘nobody, no one in particular’:
Niemand hat das Fenster aufgemacht. Das war der Wind.
§19 Nichts, etwas, and alles all refer to things: ‘Nothing’, ‘something’, and ‘everything’.
Again, the accompanying verb is in the third person singular.

Nichts ist so gut wie italienisches Eis.
Möchten Sie etwas essen? Nein, danke. Ich habe Eis gegessen.
Wo ist denn das italienische Eis? Rainer hat alles gegessen!
When used as a pronoun, etwas can be defined by a following neuter adjectival noun,
whose case is determined by the usage of the phrase within the entire sentence. Most
frequently that adjectival noun has the nominative or accusative ending -es:
Was möchtest du trinken? Kaffee? Nein. Etwas Kaltes, bitte.
Mutti! Der Hansjürgen hat etwas Dummes gesagt!
Etwas is also an adverb meaning ‘somewhat’.
Heute ist es etwas kalt, nicht? Ja, etwas kälter als gestern.
Like etwas, nichts is often followed by an adjectival noun:
Was hat denn der Arzt gesagt? Nichts Gutes. Tut mir leid.
Alles is often found in the phrase Alles Gute! — ‘Best wishes’, literally ‘I wish you
everything that is good’.
§20 Interrogative pronouns, as their name suggests, are used to ask questions. They may
refer to people (‘Who?’ ‘Whom?’ ‘Whose?’) or to things (‘What?’). The interrogative
pronouns do not show gender, and are both singular and plural.
PEOPLE THINGS
NOMINATIVE wer was
GENITIVE wessen see Pronouns §21
DATIVE wem see Pronouns §21
ACCUSATIVE wen was
All these forms are used in either direct or indirect questions. A direct question ends
with a question mark; an indirect question is concealed within a statement

or another question.
DIRECT: Who are you? INDIRECT: I don’t know who you are.
Do you know who that is?
Wer, the nominative form, is used when the interrogative is the subject of a question:
  Wer ist das? Wer sind denn diese Leute?
Wessen, the genitive form, is the equivalent of English ‘Whose?’.
  Wessen Mantel ist das? Ist das Heidis Mantel?
Wem shows that the identity of the recipient of an action is unknown
↓SUBJECT (nominative)
  Wem hat er denn das Geld gegeben?
↑RECIPIENT (dative)
Wen asks a question in which the direct object of the verb is an unknown person:
  Wen hast du am Bahnhof gesehen? War das Hildegard?
§21 Both wem and wen, which are the equivalents of English ‘whom’, can be

the objects of prepositions, just as English ‘whom’ can:
Mit wem bist du eigentlich zum Zoo gegangen?
Für wen haben Sie denn in Köln gearbeitet?
Colloquial English places the prepositions at the end of such questions:
Who(m) did you work for?
But standard German does not permit this. If there is a connection between preposition
and interrogative pronoun, as there is in this English question, the two words must
appear together. The English written standard requires the same form as the German:
For whom did you work?
Was, the neuter interrogative pronoun, does not have dative or genitive forms.
Colloquial German allows speakers to say Von was? and Mit was?,

using the accusative form as a dative. The standard language requires that

the was be couched in a wo- construction, in which the wo- does not mean ‘where’:
Womit spielst du denn? What are you playing with?
Weißt du, wovon er erzählte? Do you know what he was talking about?
If the preposition begins with a vowel, the wo- becomes wor-: woraus, woran.
Older forms of English used the equivalent of wo- constructions in ‘where-’, still present
in the word ‘whereby’ (‘by what’) and ‘wherein’ (‘in what’).
§22 Reflexive pronouns refer back, or reflect back, on the subject of a sentence.
By definition they cannot appear in either the nominative or the genitive case.
The subject may bedoing something on her own behalf, in which instance
the reflexive pronoun appears in the dative case.

If the subject does something to himself directly (‘He bit himself’.),

the reflexive pronoun appears in the accusative case.

Forms: The reflexive pronouns are identical in form to the personal pronouns

with theexception of the second person polite (Sie) and the third person

singular (er, sie, es) and plural (sie), where the pronoun is sich ‘him-/her-/itself,

themselves’.

Usage: The action in the sentence reflects back on the subject.

Subject and object must be the same person.
reflexive: Der Wolf beißt sich (himself) in den Fuß.
not reflexive: Der Wolf beißt ihn/sie (someone else) in den Fuß.
reflexive: Ich kaufe mir später einen neuen Pullover.
not reflexive: Ich kaufe ihm/ihr später einen neuen Pullover.

NOTE: Many verbs have special meanings when they are used with reflexive pronouns.
Caution: Selber also means ‘self’. It is not a reflexive pronoun, however, but rather an
intensifier. It puts greater emphasis on a person already referred to:

↓DIRECT OBJECT
Gib mir den Hammer. Ich mache das selber.
↑INTENSIFIER

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