Abstract
In a grammatical system where a referent is differentiated from other entities and then located, there are certain morphological units.
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Notes
- 1.
Of course, Sonnen may appear in many cases but it is not a plural form. It is spelled this way when forming compounds with many feminine nouns that end in an -e.
- 2.
Example from “Buddihistische Philosophie,” Wikipedia, last modified February 21 2013, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhistische_Philosophie#Vergleich_mit_anderen_Philosophien.
- 3.
As cited in Rijpma and Schuringa, (1962, p. 167).
- 4.
Über zwei Tonnen Metall gestohlen. (2013, February 23).
- 5.
Example from De Han Ci Dian [The German-Chinese Dictionary]. (1982, p. 808).
- 6.
16-jähriger Schwarzfahrer muss fast drei Jahre in Haft. (2013, January 29).
- 7.
I consulted three native German speakers at work who corroborated this usage.
- 8.
- 9.
This example, however, is perfect by itself. It is better to form the sentence as Er ist ein guter Student ‘He is a good student,’ otherwise the sentence may occur with very low frequence (for explanations please refer to following examples and sections).
- 10.
This may provide a validation for the capitalization and so-called “nominalization” of some originally separate verbs, such as Auto fahren ‘to drive a car,’ originally written and recognized as auto/fahren. Since Auto is part of the verb, it is understandable that Auto ‘car’ is not differentiated nor required to be differentiated, because Auto fahren is an action, designating to the general auto-driving action, not to a subject, not to mention to which subject.
- 11.
“Geschichte Pommerns.” Wikipedia. www.de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_Pommerns. (2012, January 1).
- 12.
Here “eine” is an inflected form of ein and is inflected to agree with the noun “sun,” which is a feminine accusative singular noun in the above example.
- 13.
“Mediziner entdecken Ursache für Nervenleiden ALS.” Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundheit/2011-08/ursache-amyotrophe-lateralsklerose (2011, August 22).
- 14.
Here den ‘the’ is an inflected form of the definite article die, to agree to the plural dative noun Tagen ‘days.’
- 15.
As explaned in Duden: die zwei zusammen ‘the two together.’ It may also provide an evidence that beide refers to a known definite set of two.
- 16.
Sentence 3.37a does not have a definite group of two, to which beide refers. A possible correction may be: Zwei Brüder arbeiten bei Mercedes, sie sind beide 18 Jahre alt ‘Two brothers work at the Mercedes. They both are 18 years old.’ To the contrast, sentence 3.37c lacks the matching quantity (therefore only has near-to-zero possibility to mean “there are only two brothers”), and cannot be grammatically correct with the same modification: *Brüder arbeiten bei Mercedes, sie sind beide 18 Jahre alt. This is not the main topic of this section and will not be discussed further here.
- 17.
This video clip can be found at www.pearstories.org.
- 18.
And if so, the speaker would change jenen ‘that’ to diesen ‘this.’
- 19.
If the noun is already mentioned in the context, then the third sentence is acceptable. Take a conversation between A and B for example: A: Wie findest du den Rock hier? ‘How do you like this skirt?’ B: Der is so teuer! ‘It is so expensive!’ In this conversation, B shares his/her mind with A and wants to keep on commenting on the skirt. Rock ‘skirt’ is omitted here, and der no longer serves as an article, but rather as a definite pronoun that is referring to Rock. However, if the noun is not mentioned in the context, the left out of the noun is grammatically not acceptable as it is in 3.45c). On the other hand, if B wants to end the topic (which is the Rock) and switches to another item (say, eine Bluse ‘a blouse’), B would use a personal pronoun to refer to the Rock: B: Er is so teuer! ‘It is so expensive!’ or even: B: Er is zu teuer! ‘It is too expensive!’
- 20.
Please refer to 3.45c footnote where der serves as a definite pronoun.
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Lin, L. (2020). The German Demonstratives. In: The German Demonstratives. Peking University Linguistics Research, vol 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8558-2_3
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