German nouns - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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German nouns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German nouns are generally capitalised (for example 'the book' is always "das Buch"). Noun compounds are written
together (for example, "spy satellite" is "Spionagesatellit" in German). As in many related Indo-European languages,
nouns in German have a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter, even words for objects without (obvious)
masculine or feminine characteristics like 'bridge' or 'rock'. They are also declined (change form) depending on their
grammatical case (their function in a sentence) and whether they are singular or plural. German has four cases,
nominative, accusative, dative and genitive.
German plurals are normally formed by adding -e, -en, -er or nothing to the noun, sometimes also a vowel is changed.
Recent loanwords from French and English often keep the -s plural ending.
der Mann (sg.) - die Mnner (pl.) ("the man" - "the men")

Contents
1 Declension for case
1.1 General rules of declension
1.2 Declension classes
1.3 Irregular declensions
2 Orthography
3 Compounds
4 Common false friends
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Declension for case

N-nouns: A masculine or neuter noun with genitive singular and nominative plural in -e(n) is called a n-noun or weak
noun (German: schwaches Substantiv). Sometimes these terms are extended to feminine nouns with genitive singular and nominative plural -en.
For the four cases, nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, the main forms of declension are:
For singular nouns:
I: Feminine nouns usually have the same form in all four cases.
die Frau, die Frau, der Frau, der Frau
Exceptions are:
Old declensions like Frau/Fraw with genitive and dative singular der Frauen/Frawen (in older usage)
Words derived from Latin with nominative singular in -a and genitive singular -ae/- (in older usage)
Proper nouns derived from Latin: Maria (Mary in English) with genitive singular Mari, Mariens, Marias and
(der) Maria.
Proper nouns which have two genitive forms like Brunhilds Speer (Brunhild's spear) and der Speer der Brunhild
(the spear of Brunhild).
The words Mama, Mami, Mutter, Mutti, Oma, Omi which have forms like die Tasche der Mama, but also Mamas
Tasche

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II: Personal names, all neuter and most masculine nouns have genitive case -(e)s endings: normally -es if one syllable
long, -s if more. This is related to using 's to show possession in English, e.g. 'The boy's book'. Traditionally the nouns in
this group also add -e in the dative case, but this is now often ignored.
der Mann, den Mann, dem Mann(e), des Mann(e)s
das Kind, das Kind, dem Kind(e), des Kind(e)s
III: Masculine and neuter n-nouns take -(e)n for genitive, dative and accusative: this is used for masculine nouns ending
with -e and a few others, mostly animate nouns.
a) der Drache, den Drachen, dem Drachen, des Drachen
b) der Prinz, den Prinzen, dem Prinzen, des Prinzen
IV: A few masculine nouns take -(e)n for accusative and dative, and -(e)ns for genitive.
a) der Buchstabe, den Buchstaben, dem Buchstaben, des Buchstabens
b) der Glaube, den Glauben, dem Glauben, des Glaubens
For plural nouns:
V: In the dative case, all nouns which do not already have an -n or -s ending add -n.
a) die Kinder, die Kinder, den Kindern, der Kinder
b) die Frauen, die Frauen, den Frauen, der Frauen

General rules of declension

Given the nominative singular, genitive singular, and nominative plural of a noun, it is possible to determine its
declension.
Note that most feminine nouns, all singular forms are identical.
The dative plural of all nouns ends in -n if such an ending does not already exist, except that of nouns that form the
plural with -s, which are usually loan words.
Most nouns do not take declensions in the accusative or dative cases. A small class of mostly masculine nouns
called "weak nouns" takes the ending -n or -en in all cases except the nominative.
Dative forms with the ending -e, known in German as the Dativ-e (dem Gotte, dem Manne) are mostly restricted to
formal usage, but widely limited to poetic style. Such forms are not commonly found in modern texts, except in fixed
expressions (such as im Stande sein: "to be able") and for some certain words (e.g. (dem) Hause, Wege or Tode) which
are, however, quite numerous; in these cases, omitting the -e would be similarly unusual.
Nevertheless, in the genitive, the ending -es is used
necessarily if the word ends with a sibilant (des Hauses, des Stoes, des Schusses)
usually by monosyllabic words (des Gottes, des Mannes)
commonly if it ends on the letter d
Only words of more syllables usually add a simple -s (des Knigs).
In colloquial usage, moreover, singular inflection of weak masculine nouns may be limited to those ending in -e (der
Name dem Namen). Other nouns of this class are sometimes not inflected. Thus one might occasionally hear dem
Spatz, dem Idiot instead of the formally correct dem Spatzen, dem Idioten.

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Declension classes
Number

Singular

Plural

Class \
Case

Article

der,
das,
die

den,
das,
die

dem,
dem,
der

des,
des,
der

G
Example

die

die

den

der

-(e)s, -e Berg

Berg

Berg(e)

Berg(e)s

Berge

Berge

Bergen

Berge

der Berg,
des Berg(e)s,
die Berge

-(e)s, -er Bild

Bild

Bild(e)

Bild(e)s

Bilder

Bilder

Bildern

Bilder

das Bild,
des Bild(e)s,
die Bilder

-(e)s, -en Staat

Staat

Staat(e)

Staat(e)s

Staaten

Staaten

Staaten

Staaten

der Staat,
des Staat(e)s,
die Staaten

Fahrer

Fahrer

Fahrers

Fahrer

Fahrer

Fahrern

Fahrer

der Fahrer,
des Fahrers,
die Fahrer

-s, -

Fahrer

-s, -e

Lehrling Lehrling

Lehrling

Lehrlings Lehrlinge

Lehrlinge

Lehrlingen Lehrlinge

der Lehrling,
des Lehrlings,
die Lehrlinge

-s, -s

Radio

Radio

Radios

Radios

Radios

Radios

das Radio,
des Radios,
die Radios

Studenten Studenten Studenten Studenten

Studenten

Studenten

Studenten

der Student,
des Studenten,
die Studenten

Mutter

Mtter

Mttern

Mtter

die Mutter,
der Mutter,
die Mtter

-en, -en Student

-, -

Mutter

Radio

Mutter

Mutter

Radios

Mtter

-, -en

die Meinung,
Meinung Meinung Meinung Meinung Meinungen Meinungen Meinungen Meinungen der Meinung,
die Meinungen

-, -e

Kraft

-, -s

-ns, -n

Kraft

Kraft

Krfte

Krfte

Krften

Krfte

die Kraft,
der Kraft,
die Krfte

Kamera Kamera

Kamera

Kamera

Kameras

Kameras

Kameras

Kameras

die Kamera,
der Kamera,
die Kameras

Name

Namen

Namens

Namen

Namen

Namen

Namen

der Name,
des Namens,
die Namen

Kraft

Namen

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Irregular declensions
Singular
Nominative der Herr

Plural
die Herren

Accusative den Herrn die Herren

Dative

dem Herrn den Herren

Genitive

des Herrn der Herren

the heart

Singular

Plural

Nominative das Herz

die Herzen

Accusative das Herz

die Herzen

Dative

dem Herzen* den Herzen

Genitive

des Herzens der Herzen

* vernacularly: dem Herz

Many foreign nouns have irregular plurals, for example:
Nominative singular Genitive singular Nominative plural
-s, -en
-s, PL

das Thema

des Themas

die Themen
die Themata

Meaning
the theme

-, -en der Kommunismus

des Kommunismus (die Kommunismen) communism

-, PL der Modus

des Modus

die Modi

the mode or mood

Orthography
German nouns are capitalized. German is the only major language to capitalize its nouns. This was also done in the
Danish language until 1948 and sometimes in (New) Latin, while Early Modern English showed tendencies towards noun
capitalization.
Capitalization is not restricted to nouns. Other words are often capitalized when they are nominalized (substantivated; for
instance das Deutsche the German language, a nominalized or substantivated adjective). German orthography has a
number of capitalization rules and non-capitalization rules.
In compound nouns (such as Apfelbaum), only the beginning is capitalized (Apfel) and not the second word (Baum) or
any following words:
Farbfernsehgert color television set

Compounds
As in other Germanic languages, German nouns can be compound in effectively unlimited numbers, as in
Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsberwachungsaufgabenbertragungsgesetz (cattle identification
and beef labeling supervision task transference law, the name of an actual law passed in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in
1999), or Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft (Danube Steamboat Shipping Company, 1829).
The difference from English compounds is that German compounds are always written together as a single word: "spy
satellite" equals "Spionagesatellit" and "mad cow syndrome" equals "Rinderwahnsinn".

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In addition, there is the grammatical feature of the Fugen-"s": certain compounds introduce an "s" between the noun
stems, historically marking the genitive case of the first noun (c.f. Idafa), but it occurs frequently after nouns which do
not actually take an "s" in their genitive cases.
In many instances, the compound is acceptable both with and without the "s", but there are many cases where the "s" is
mandatory and this cannot be deduced from grammatical rules, e.g. Hochzeitskleid = "wedding dress", Liebeslied = "love
song", Abfahrtszeit = "time of departure", Arbeitsamt = "employment agency".
Occurrence of the Fugen-"s" seems to be correlated to certain suffixes (of the first stem); words in "tum, -ling, -ion, -tt,
-heit, -keit, -schaft, -sicht, -ung" and nominalized infinitives in "-en" mostly do take the "s", while feminine words in
"-ion, -tt, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -sicht, -ung" mostly do not, but there are exceptions. Use of the "s" is mostly optional in
compounds in which the second element is a participle.[1]
To reduce length, a suffix may only be mentioned one time in a sentence, even if it applies to more than one compound
noun. For example:
Nhe Haupt- und Busbahnhof (near the main railway [station] and bus station)

Common false friends

As in English, some nouns (e.g. mass nouns) only have a singular form (singularia tantum); other nouns only have a
plural form (pluralia tantum):
Das All, der Durst, der Sand ("the Universe", "thirst", "sand")
Die Kosten, die Ferien ("costs", "the holidays")
Traps abound in both directions here: common mass nouns in English are not mass nouns in German, and vice versa:
information Informationen, die Information ("the piece of information"), die Informationen ("the pieces of
information")
the police are (pl.) = die Polizei ist (sg.)
Again as in English, some words change their meaning when changing their number:
Geld ("money") - Gelder ("different sources of money")
Wein ("wine") - die Weine ("different types of wine")
A few words have two different plurals with distinct meanings. For example:
Wort ("word") - Wrter (isolated words, as in "five words") - Worte (connected, meaningful words, as in "his last
words")
Band - Bande ("bonds") - Bnder ("ribbons")
Bau - Bauten ("buildings") - Baue ("burrows")
Some words share the singular and can only be distinguished by their gender and sometimes their plural:
Gehalt - das Gehalt, die Gehlter ("salary") - der Gehalt, die Gehalte ("content")
Band - das Band, die Bnder ("ribbon") - der Band, die Bnde ("bibliographic volume")
Teil - das Teil, die Teile (physical "piece" e.g. from a machine) - der Teil, die Teile (conceptual "part" e.g. from a
speech)
See - der See, die Seen ("lake") - die See ("sea", no plural form) - die See, die Seen (nautical term for "(large)
wave")
Kiefer - der Kiefer, die Kiefer ("jawbone") - die Kiefer, die Kiefern ("pine tree")

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See also
German grammar

References
1. Spiegel Online, Der Gebrauch des Fugen-s im berblick (http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/zwiebelfisch-der-gebrauchdes-fugen-s-im-ueberblick-a-293195.html)

External links
German Nouns and Gender
(http://www.deutsched.com/Grammar/Lessons/0101noungender.php)
German grammar lesson covering nouns and gender
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For a list of words relating

to German nouns, see the
German nouns category of
words in Wiktionary, the
free dictionary.

Categories: German grammar German declension

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