"Beide" Problem
David
say that the word takes the endings from dies- instead of endings for
conventional adjectives.
As beide always refers to a plural this will be -e in Akk case or -en
in the Dativ case.
Is this correct ?
and what about:
"I have seen both his red cars"
is it :
a) Ich habe beide seine roten Autos gesehen
b) Ich habe beiden seine roten Autos gesehen
or something else ?
What I am having diffulty with is does the ending for beide affected
by the indefinite/definite/null article like adjectives ?
Any help appreciated
Dave
Thomas vJdE
David wrote:
> I am having problems with the endings for "beide". Two grammar books
> say that the word takes the endings from dies- instead of endings for
> conventional adjectives.
Incorrect. "Er nahm diese beideN Bälle ...." The beid- takes
-en, not -e only. If there is no other pronoun involved, then,
in fact, 'beid-' behaves like 'dies-'.
> As beide always refers to a plural this will be -e in Akk case or -en
> in the Dativ case.
>
> Is this correct ?
Not always. As said, it depends if the 'beide' is *the only*
"pronoun" involved. (In fact, it isn't a "proper" pronoun - but
this is another subject...)
> and what about:
>
> "I have seen both his red cars"
>
> is it :
>
> a) Ich habe beide seine roten Autos gesehen
>
> b) Ich habe beiden seine roten Autos gesehen
neither! Word order!
"Ich habe seine beiden roten Autos gesehen."
If there is a possessive pronoun or article involved, the order
is [posspron/article][beid()].
Between the posspron and 'beide' may go some other words, such
as numerals "Seine ersten beiden Filme waren schlecht.", but one
can inverse the order of 'ersten' and 'beiden', too. This is
perfect german, too: "Seine beiden ersten Filme waren schlecht."
[...]
Thomas
Einde O'Callaghan
>
> David wrote:
> > I am having problems with the endings for "beide". Two grammar books
> > say that the word takes the endings from dies- instead of endings for
> > conventional adjectives.
>
> Incorrect. "Er nahm diese beideN Bälle ...." The beid- takes
> -en, not -e only. If there is no other pronoun involved, then,
> in fact, 'beid-' behaves like 'dies-'.
>
only pronoun is "er".
Gruß, Einde O'Callaghan
Thomas vJdE
[...]
> "Beide" is actually an adjective, not a pronoun. In that sentence the
> only pronoun is "er".
I disagree. Try to replace any adjective with 'beide' - does it
work (is it acceptable)? No. The "replace-test" is fairly
efficient.
Maybe 'beide' is some sort of "numeral pronoun" or the like, cf.
"einige" (some), "wenige" (few), "alle" (all) and others.
Actually, germanists are not unanimous about this class of
words, and, as usual in such cases, they're often numbered with
"particles".
Thomas
Helmut Richter
> Thomas vJdE wrote:
>> Incorrect. "Er nahm diese beideN Bälle ...." The beid- takes
>> -en, not -e only. If there is no other pronoun involved, then,
>> in fact, 'beid-' behaves like 'dies-'.
>>
> "Beide" is actually an adjective, not a pronoun. In that sentence the
> only pronoun is "er".
Is that correct? At least it is something that cannot be used as a
predicate: "*Mein Bruder und ich sind beide." is wrong.
But it really does not matter. The rule with "beide" is the same rule as
always: the first (any of article, adjective, demonstrative pronoun, or
"beide", whatever it is) in the row before the noun gets the strong
ending, all others get the weak ending, e.g.:
meine beiden Bücher with strong -e and weak -en
meiner beiden Bücher (genitive) with strong -er and weak -en
beide guten Bücher
To remember, here are the endings. "weak" above means the endings
according to the last rule (all other cases) below.
Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive
Feminine -e -e -er -er
Neuter -(e)s -(e)s -em -es
Masculine -er -en -em -es
Plural -e -e -en -er
and here is how they are used:
- The definite article ends always with the letter in this table. It
is always "d-" followed by the ending in the table with two exceptions:
for neut.nom. and neut.acc. it is "das", and it is "die" and not "de" if
the table contains "-e".
- The singular indefinite article is "ein" without an ending for
masc.nom., neut.nom., and neut.acc. In all other cases it is "ein-"
followed by the ending in the table.
- The plural indefinite article is always omitted.
- If and only if there is no article, or the article has no ending at
all, then the adjective takes on the same ending (exception: genitive
"-es" becomes "-en").
- In all other cases, the ending of the adjective is "-e" for
fem.nom., fem.acc., masc.nom., neut.nom., neut.acc. (note that masc.acc.
is not in the list), otherwise "-en".
The role of the article can be taken over by "manch", "solch", ... .
In these cases, there is often more than one viable construct, e.g.:
manch schneller Zug "article" has no ending, adjective has
mancher schnelle Zug "article" has ending, adjective has only "-e"
"dieser", "jener", "beide" ... are other words which can take the article
ending, leaving the adjective with "-e" or "-en" only.
The case "no ending of article" happens for *real* articles only with
the indefinite article "ein".
It is weird, I admit. But such is life.
Helmut Richter
Einde O'Callaghan
>
> Einde O'Callaghan wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > "Beide" is actually an adjective, not a pronoun. In that sentence the
> > only pronoun is "er".
>
> I disagree. Try to replace any adjective with 'beide' - does it
> work (is it acceptable)? No. The "replace-test" is fairly
> efficient.
>
pronouns and adjectives. As I see it the repolacement test is whether
you can replace "beide(n)" in the case in question by an adjective and I
think you can:
You, for example, cited "diese beiden Bälle". Is it possible to replace
the word "beiden" by an adjective and have a meaningful phrase? Well
let's see: "diese großen Bälle" or "diese roten Bälle". Both of those
seem meaningful to me
Of course it is also possible for "beide" to function as a pronoun:
"Waren Kalus und Peter da?" -"Ja, beide waren da."
Of course, the grammar is a bit more complex than that - the discussion
in Hammer is a page and a half long. Actually in the course of the
discussion he seems to studiously avoid referring to the word as either
an adjective or a pronoun. He uses various examples, however, where
"beide" seems to function variously as a pronoun, an adjective and a
sort of demonstrative "article".
> Maybe 'beide' is some sort of "numeral pronoun" or the like, cf.
> "einige" (some), "wenige" (few), "alle" (all) and others.
>
Alll of tehse are discussed by Hammer in the same section - again they
seem to function in some cases as adjectives and in others as pronouns
and and yet others as a similar sort of "article".
> Actually, germanists are not unanimous about this class of
> words, and, as usual in such cases, they're often numbered with
> "particles".
>
I thought particles were those troublesome little words like doch,
eigentlich, allerdings, nämlich. zwar etc. that are so important, yet
are almost impossible to translate.
I make no claims to be an expert of German grammatical terminology. My
discussion is informed by the fact that I'm an English-language teacher
working in a German-speaking environment - I did study the German
language, but not German grammar - except insofar as it touches on usage
(practice, not theory).
But I still maintain that since "beide" has weak endings after an
article but has strong endings when there is no article it is behaving
like an adjective.
Gruß, Einde O'Callaghan
David
message. Its a good book but a bit too comprehensive for my liking
(hard). Many thanks for the responses.
The best interpretation I can make at the moment is:
Decline beide like diese unless precedeed by an article or determiner
is also present then it takes the weak adjective endings. Thankfully
it exists in the plural only.
Those two rules are good enough for me ! I have so much to learn and
so little time.
Now on to jed- , all- and ander- !
I seem to have more difficulty with these kinds of words than any
other....
Thanks again
Dave
Einde O'Callaghan <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote in message news:<3DEE71A1...@planet-interkom.de>...
Jan-Hinnerk Reichert
> Of course it is also possible for "beide" to function as a pronoun:
> "Waren Kalus und Peter da?" -"Ja, beide waren da."
IMHO "beide" is not used as pronoun here, it could just be an article to a
noun that is left out.
Jan-Hinnerk
Einde O'Callaghan
I've never studied German grammar in any great detail, so I'm not
necessarily familiar with the terminology. However, I can't help feeling
that describing "beide" as an article is also wide of the mark.
Is there a "Germanist" here who has made a thorough study of German
grammar and can give an authorative view.
REgards, Einde O'Callaghan
Wayne Brown
Newsbeitrag news:3DF5829B...@planet-interkom.de...
> >
> It may be my background in English grammar that leads me to doubt this -
> I've never studied German grammar in any great detail, so I'm not
> necessarily familiar with the terminology. However, I can't help feeling
> that describing "beide" as an article is also wide of the mark.
>
> Is there a "Germanist" here who has made a thorough study of German
> grammar and can give an authorative view.
>
> REgards, Einde O'Callaghan
That's a tricky one, Einde. 'Beide' is classified grammatically in several
ways. Well-known reference works call it various things, sometimes a
pronominal adjective, sometimes a indefinite pronoun and numeral word. As
you've pointed out, it's not an article. I see no problem classifying it as
'both' is classified in English, as sometimes a pronoun (both want to go)
and sometimes an adjective (both boys want to go). But as you know, 'beide'
acts the same way in German, albeit grammatical endings lacking in English
also come into play.
Regards, ----- WB.
Einde O'Callaghan
My initial reply was spontaneous and relied on the function of "beide"
based on the analogy with "both". However, when others objected I
consulted my Hammer, the only good German grammar book I've got access
to at home. But Hammer never refers to the word as an adjective or a
pronoun - he only includes it in a chapter about "adjectives and
pronouns" - not very helpful for the subject of our discussion. ;-(
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
andy
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote
[
>Of course, the grammar is a bit more complex than that - the discussion
>in Hammer is a page and a half long.
Ah, one of his shorter sections, then :)
--
Andy Taylor [Editor, Austrian Philatelic Society]
For Austrian philately http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/austamps