German Declension

by Helmut Richter

The purpose of this article is to summarise German declension as much as possible in the form of rules as distinct from tables. The idea is that only a minimum has to be learnt, and a maximum of regularities exploited. Well, the regularities are few and the rules are complex – but things are just not simpler. The question which case to apply when is outside the scope of this article.

• Some general principles in German declension
  • Four classes – four cases
  • Sparingness of marking, “Monoflexion”
• Declension patterns
  • Strong declension
  • Weak declension
  • Forms without ending
    • Words and expressions that never have an ending
    • Mandatory omission of ending
    • Optional omission of ending
  • Adjective and numeral declension
  • Noun and name declension (see also separate article)
• Declining the entire phrase
  • Subdividing the phrase into subphrases
  • Endings in the determiner subphrase
  • Endings in the adjective subphrase
  • Endings in the noun subphrase
  • Examples

Overview

This article contains a lot of detail which may be uninteresting for some or even most readers. It is designed for readers that have a fair basic knowledge of German and want an overview of the various intricacies of German declension, in particular of the influence the various parts of a nominal phrase can have on each other. For the resolution of a single question, not the entire article needs to be read:

• For learning how German declension works without studying the details, you are invited to read the short first chapter on general principles in its entirety plus the introductory paragraphs of the subsequent two chapters, each up to the first subordinate headline. You might then want to glimpse at the examples before delving into the gory details.

• For finding the pronoun and adjective endings in a sentence, make sure you know what strong and weak declension means, then jump to the chapter Declining The Entire Phrase. Read on until your question is answered, which will often be the case after much less than the entire chapter.

• For finding the case endings for a given noun, there is a separate companion article on noun declension. But be warned, even with that one, you will need a dictionary because noun case endings can often not be found by applying rules.

Some general principles in German declension

The contents of this section is assumed to be known in the subsequent sections; please read it carefully. The examples in this section are only illustrative; the rules governing the contained declension endings are explained later.

Four classes – four cases

There are three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural) but they combine only into four classes (masculine singular, feminine singular, neuter singular, common plural). The formation of a noun plural may be dependent on the gender of the word, but all other words – articles, pronouns, adjectives – referring to a plural noun are not affected by its gender. The four classes are abbreviated m, f, n, and p in this article. (The term “noun class” instead of “grammatical gender and number” is normally used for African languages but is useful here as well.)

Gender is not sex: non-biological, hence sexless, objects can have words of any gender. However, when a word denotes exclusively persons or animals of only one sex, there is a good chance that males have words of masculine gender and that females have words of feminine gender, although even then there are exceptions. Other than in English, the gender of generic words overrides the sex of the person; we can thus have eine männliche Geisel or ein weibliches Mitglied. In the same sentence, the grammatically fitting pronoun is used; later, there is often a switch to the “biologically correct” one. Most generic words of masculine gender have a feminine counterpart for females; one would therefore not say ein weiblicher Lehrer but rather eine Lehrerin. Whether or not Lehrer beiderlei Geschlechts can or should be replaced by Lehrerinnen und Lehrer is a matter of political correctness, not of language, and thus not discussed here.

There are four cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative), mostly enumerated in this sequence but sometimes also with accusative second. The four cases are abbreviated N, G, D, and A in this article. The way cases are marked by articles or by word endings depends on the class:

• Only in the m class, A case is different from N case. This rule is universally valid and overrides every rule below. Thus, in the sequel a phrase like “only N case” would mean “only N case and, for f, n, or p class, also A case” without further notice.

• In the f class, not only N und A case coincide, but also G and D, with an exception for names. Moreover, for nouns, but not for articles and adjectives, all four cases look the same.

• In the p class, N, A, and G coincide for nouns.

Hence, the four classes combine with the four cases in a way that not 16 combinations result but only 10 for nouns (m-N, m-G, m-D, m-A, f-NGDA, n-NA, n-G, n-D, p-NGA, p-D) and 12 for other parts of speech (with f-NA, f-GD, p-NA, p-G). That's a fair saving over 2×3×4=24 but the odd distribution of similar and dissimilar forms seems to be more of a difficulty than a simplification.

Sparingness of marking, “Monoflexion”

Since Middle High German times, endings marking the gender and case of a word are used rather sparingly, and many of the ending look the same or very similar. This sparingness can be considered a feature of German declension: when there is already a word having a more or less unambiguous mark for the case, then other words may have no mark or a rather unspecific one. This principle is sometimes called “Monoflexion” because in the extreme case, there is only one inflected word in the phrase; in general, however, more than one word is inflected. Here are some examples:

Er geht mit gutem Beispiel voran.
Das Kapitel beginnt mit einem guten Beispiel.

In the first sentence, gutem is the only word that has a chance of showing the n-D property of gutes Beispiel in this sentence. It carries the ending -em which is specific for mn-D. However, in the second sentence, einem has already a specific ending, and for the adjective a rather unspecific -en is good enough.

Mit wievielen Schülern hast du dich getroffen? – Mit drei Schülern.
Mit wievielen Schülern hast du dich getroffen? – Mit dreien.

This is again the same pattern: the p-D form differs from the other cases by an additional -n ending, so such an ending on the numeral is spurious and thus omitted. This happens also for words where the p-D form is not different from the other p forms.

Wessen Buch ist das? – Es ist dein Buch.
Wessen Buch ist das? – Es ist das deine.
Wessen Buch ist das? – Es ist deines.

Here, it is not case information but gender information which can be attached to either the noun, or the article, or the possesive pronoun. As a result, the latter can get three different possible endings although gender and case is always the same, to wit n-N.

When a name consists of several words, not all of them get the -s ending in the genitive case – sometimes even none when the article carries already the case information: Walters, Herrn Walter Müllers, des Herrn Walter Müller.

Whereas the principle of “sparingness of marking” has some logic behind it, the examples show that the actual endings appear somewhat irregular. There is only little freedom which spurious endings to drop or to retain; in most cases there is only one possible distribution of case endings.

Declension patterns

Declensions are often called “strong” or “weak”. These terms refer to the endings which are either specific for only a handful of class/case combinations (strong) or common for many of them (weak). There is, however, a pitfall about the usage of the terms “strong” and “weak”:

• For adjectives, both patterns are used for each adjective, depending on the syntactic context – strong endings where the adjective has the burden of marking gender and case, and weak endings where another part of speech, usually an article or a pronoun, fulfils this task.

• For nouns, each noun is declined either according to the weak declension pattern, which resembles the weak adjective declension, or to a different pattern sometimes called strong although it has only little similarity with strong adjective declension.

Strong declension

The basis for strong non-noun declension are the definite articles. They just have to be learnt:

A plus sign means that this entry is not used because for these classes, the accusative equals the nominative for all parts of speech.

The relative pronouns look the same except for all genitive forms and the p-D form which have an additional -en ending, yielding mn-G dessen, fp-G deren, and p-D denen.

Now, strong non-noun declension has all forms with the same final letter as the definite article:

Instead of these mn-N forms, some words have forms without ending in most contexts; this will be discussed in one of the next sections.

The strong mn-G forms of adjectives with -es ending are today no longer used but replaced by weak forms with -en ending. For many non-adjectives, however, the strong forms are the only correct ones, whereas in other situations both mn-G forms are permissible. Details will be given later. The strong mn-G forms were in use until fairly recently (e.g. the 1912 version of Luther's Bible translation contains reines Herzens (Mt.5:8) and alles Fleisches (Gen.6:13) which have been replaced by reinen Herzens and allen Fleisches in the 1984 version); at least for adjectives they are now considered obsolete.

Finally, the declension of most pronouns follows a similar pattern.

Singular pronouns are avoided with prepositions when talking about inanimate objects: use words like dabei, dafür, wobei, wofür instead. This avoidance is not a hard and fast rule but depends on the context. The more determined the referent, the more permitted is the combination of prepositions with singular pronouns, and combinations with es sound clumsier than with other pronouns.

The inanimate counterpart of jemand is etwas which is not declined at all with the genitive case missing altogether.

Weak declension

Weak declension makes only a difference between nominative singular and all other cases:

Forms without ending

Words and expressions that never have an ending

The words and expressions nichts, wenig, ein wenig, (ein) paar, etwas, genug, viel, derlei, allerlei, mancherlei, deren, dessen are not inflected at all. The genitive case is avoided and replaced by constructs with von, the other cases have the same form as the nominative, even the word ein in ein paar and ein wenig is not inflected as one can see in the following example where they appear in dative and accusative case. Example:

Mit ein paar reifen Früchten und genug frischer Milch schmeckt die Speise viel besser, deren altes Rezept ich Ihnen verrate. Wenn Sie etwas Süßes mögen, können Sie auch ein wenig braunen Zucker hinzufügen.

These uninflected words and expressions do not appear together with determiners (see item 1 in the list below for a definition). The only exception is ein paar which can trade the leading ein in for a determiner, e.g. diese paar alten Klamotten (these few old rags).

Several of these (ein wenig, etwas, genug) are not only used as in the example where they constitute a part of a nominal phrase, but they can also qualify an adjective, thus acting as an adverb: ein wenig mager, etwas unbefriedigend, gut genug. The difference in the syntax is subtle: if there is an additional article or possessive pronoun, only an adverb can be meant, e.g. mein etwas altes Auto (my somewhat old car); if not, some sentences may appear ambiguous, e.g. etwas mageres Fleisch which could either mean “somewhat lean meat” or “some lean meat” with the latter suggesting itself in the first place. In the context of this article, only the usage in the nominal phrase and not as an adverb is meant.

The distinction between “much” and “many” is made in German in nearly the same way as in English: viel (much), wenig (little), ein wenig (a little), viele (many) wenige (few). viel und wenig, used for singular nouns, are both uninflected, whereas viele und wenige are inflected. There are, however, also situations where the inflected viele und wenige appear in the singular, to wit when there is a need to determine the noun with a definite article or possessive pronoun: mein weniges Geld, das viele übrig gebliebene Brot. The inflected forms are also occasionally applied in other contexts, in particular with adjectives or verbs used as neuter nouns, e.g. vieles Gute (synonym of viel Gutes), vieles Lesen (preferred over viel Lesen), but also with some other nouns, e.g. ohne viele Mühe or Vielen Dank!.

Adjectives ending with -er derived from geographical names (e.g. Münchner, Brandenburger, Schweizer) are not declined either and behave similarly to the expressions explained in this section. They do, however, sometimes appear with determiners, and the genitive is avoided only when a cluster of noun-like words would obscure the cases. There are also nouns denoting inhabitants of the geographical region. These nouns look the same as the adjective in the nominative, but are declined like other nouns which makes a difference only in the mn-G and p-D case. Compare:

The adjective Schweizer, like the English adjective “Swiss”, refers to anything Swiss including but not restricted to army knives and cheese, whereas the noun refers only to Swiss citizens. Both words are capitalised, other than other adjectives derived from geographical names (e.g. bayerisch, deutsch, britisch).

Mandatory omission of ending

The mn-N forms of the possessive pronouns, of the indefinite article, and p-D forms of numerals take an ending only in a few contexts where no more word follows in the phrase. In the vast majority of possible contexts, they cannot have an ending.

Optional omission of ending

Some words can be used with or without their ending. With the exception of the first item below, the forms without an optional ending belong more to elevated language; in some contexts they sound stilted.

• all- can drop its ending when a demonstrative or possessive pronoun follows: alle meine Entchen or all meine Entchen; it must drop its ending when a definite article follows: all die Entchen.

• manch- can be used with or without ending; it must not have an ending immediately before an indefinite article and should have one immediately before a noun: manches dicke Buch, manch dickes Buch or manch ein dickes Buch.

• solch- behaves mostly like an indefinite numeral or an adjective, both regarding its position in the phrase and its ending. It can, however, also be placed immediately before an indefinite article and is then without ending. Moreover, the ending is optional immediately before an adjective: solch ein dickes Buch, ein solch dickes Buch, or ein solches dickes Buch.

• welch without ending, morphologically and syntactically behaving like solch without ending, serves for emphasis in an exclamation: welch ein dickes Buch! (what a thick book!), but welches dicke Buch? (which thick book?).

• In archaic language, n-NA forms of adjectives are sometimes without ending when there is no article with an ending before. This usage has now been obsolete for more than a century but occurs in proverbs, song lyrics, and idioms: gut Ding will Weile haben (a thing well done needs time), kein schöner Land ... als hier das unsre ([there is] no lovelier land ... than ours here), sich bei jmdm. lieb Kind machen (curry favour with s.o.).

The form dies instead of dieses should be regarded as a contraction rather than as a form without ending; subsequent words are treated as if it had an ending: compare manch dickes Buch and dies[es] dicke Buch.

Adjective and numeral declension

The way adjectives and numerals are declined is highly dependent on their context in the whole phrase. The entire next chapter of this article is devoted to this topic.

Noun and name declension

Other than the other parts of speech, nouns have individual declensions; there is not a single pattern for all of them. As a small comfort, they have only one declension each, other than adjectives. For each noun, it suffices to know the gender, the plural, and, for masculine nouns with -en plural only, whether they are subject to weak declension. More on noun declension patterns can be found in a separate article.

Adjectival nouns (substantivierte Adjektive) are nouns that emerged from ellipses with omitted nouns, e.g. der Kranke (from der kranke Mensch), die Deutsche (from die deutsche Frau), das Gehackte, (from das gehackte Fleisch). They are declined like adjectives, not like nouns. The main difference is seen when adjective declension is strong: masculine adjectival noun: m-N der Kranke, ein Kranker, p-N Kranke; genuine noun: m-N der Bote, ein Bote, p-N Boten; feminine adjectival noun: f-N die Deutsche, f-G der Deutschen, p-N Deutsche; genuine noun: f-N die Tante, f-G der Tante, p-N Tanten; neuter adjectival noun: n-N das Gehackte, Gehacktes; genuine noun: n-N das Gebirge, ein Gebirge, p-N Gebirge. Not always is it obvious that a noun is an adjectival noun: der/die Abgeordnete, die Variable. Feminine adjectival nouns have a tendency of being treated as genuine nouns when they are no longer recognised (f-G der Variablen or der Variable), some even acquire extra feminine markers (der Beamte, die Beamtin). Masculine and neuter adjectival nouns are more robust in this respect.

Names have only their genitive case different from the nominative. The pattern is similar to masculine nouns but with the important difference that the -s (but never -es) genitive ending occurs with all names irrespective of gender (Antons, Annas). After a sibilant, it may be replaced by an apostrophe (Franz'); the formation with -ens (Franzens) is archaic. Where the person is well-known enough, the article is often used to avoid the genitive marker (das Leben des Franz von Assissi).

Declining the entire phrase

In this chapter we talk about nominal phrases, that is phrases that are a single unit of declension. For instance, in the sentence

Wir betrachten die in der Zeit des hohen Mittelalters gebauten Burgen.

the accusative object is die in der Zeit des hohen Mittelalters gebauten Burgen but it contains a subphrase in the dative case, to wit der Zeit des hohen Mittelalters which in turn contains a subphrase in the genitive case, to wit des hohen Mittelalters. Nominal phrases do thus occur nested. In this article, we regard as one nominal phrase a piece of text that must necessarily have the same class and case because there is no syntactic reason that would allow switching. In this example, die ... gebauten Burgen, der Zeit ..., and des hohen Mittelalters would be the three nominal phrases the declension of which have to be determined separately.

A nominal phrase to be declined can consist of following parts of speech, usually in this sequence:

1. Determiners: all-, definite articles (der, des, die, ...), demonstrative pronouns (dies-, jen-), welch-, irgendwelch-, manch-, possessive pronouns (mein-, dein-, ...), first and second person personal pronouns (ich, du, euch, ...)

2. Numerals in the widest sense: indefinite article (ein-, kein-), jed-, solch-, folgend-, cardinal numbers (zwei-, drei-, ...), indefinite numerals (beid-, einig-, mehrer-, viel-, viel, ein paar, ...)

3. Adjectives including ordinal numbers (erst-, zweit-, ...), also ander-, nächst-, letzt-

4. Noun or sequence of titles and names

The general trend for the words before the noun is to go from determiners saying what exactly is spoken about to descriptors telling properties of what is spoken about; only the ordinal numbers do not fit in this pattern. There is no syntactic or morphological difference between ein- as an indefinite article (English “a”) and as a numeral (English “one”), only stress is different; regarding the declension rules, ein- behaves as indefinite article.

The vast majority of phrases consist of a determiner or an indefinite article or neither, followed by zero or more adjectives, followed by one noun. In this case, the basic rule is:

• If the determiner has no ending or is lacking altogether, the adjectives take the ending a determiner would have had, that is, a strong ending, except in mn-G case.

• If the determiner exists and has an ending, the adjectives take a weak ending, and in addition also in mn-G case.

The case “determiner without ending” occurs with indefinite articles and possessive pronouns in mn-N or n-A case. There are thus the following possibilities:

• zero or more adjectives with strong endings (unless mn-G); noun

• determiner or indefinite article with no ending; zero or more adjectives with strong endings (unless mn-G); noun

• determiner or indefinite article with strong ending; zero or more adjectives with weak endings; noun

• optional determiner or indefinite article with or without strong ending; zero or more adjectives in mn-G case with weak endings; noun

If the phrase is more complex (e.g. indefinite numerals combined with determiners or adjectives, or noun missing), the basic pattern is still the same: there is a sequence of determiners with no endings or strong ones, followed by a sequence of adjective-like words having a strong ending if and only if there was no strong ending in the last word before. The situation can, however, be rather intricate when it comes to defining in which of the two sequences the other words belong, in particular the indefinite numerals. In some situations, there is some leeway, leaving more than one correct distribution of case endings. We take here a somewhat prescriptive approach, offering one working variant without discussing which alternatives would also have been possible. More than one variant is given only when both variants are commonly used by native speakers. Hence, a violation of the rules below does not always mean incorrect language.

Now, we are going to specify the general rule covering also the more complex phrases. For brevity, a word is said to be in a strong position when it is the first word of the whole inflected phrase or when the last preceding word had no ending ( mandatory or optional omission of ending); otherwise it is in a weak position. Uninflected words and expressions (that is, words and expressions that never have an ending) pass on their strong or weak position to subsequent words. The word after a p-N personal pronoun (wir, ihr) is in a weak position, but the position after all other cases of personal pronouns (ich, mir, mich, du, dir, dich, uns, euch – genitive does not occur) is strong.

Subdividing the phrase into subphrases

The first step is to subdivide the entire phrase into three subphrases: a determiner subphrase, an adjective subphrase, and a noun subphrase. These appear in this sequence; there is no alternation between subphrases in the phrase. However, each of the subphrases can be void.

• Determiners (item 1 in the list above) belong to the determiner subphrase.

• In compositions with definite articles (derjenige, dasselbe) the article is in the determiner subphrase and the remainder of the word in the adjective subphrase. Compositions with irgend- are declined as if the irgend- were not present.

• Numerals in the widest sense (item 2 in the list above) belong to the determiner subphrase when in a strong position and the phrase is singular; otherwise they belong to the adjective subphrase. There are, however, a handful of exceptions:

  • A few words belong to the determiner subphrase when in a strong position even in the plural. kein- is then always in the determiner subphrase. beid-, sämtlich-, and solch- can be used both ways (p-NA beide dicke Bücher or beide dicken Bücher; p-G beider dicker Bücher or beider dicken Bücher). More often than not, particularly in the p-NA case, they are treated as belonging to the determiner subphrase.

  • solch- after ein belongs to the adjective subphrase even when ein has no ending.

  • The expression alle beide is mostly declined in parallel, that is, both words are in the determiner subphrase although beid- is in a weak position after all-.

• Descriptive adjectives and ordinal numbers (item 3 in the list above) belong to the adjective subphrase.

• Adjectival nouns belong to the adjective subphrase.

• Non-adjectival nouns and names belong to the noun subphrase.

Endings in the determiner subphrase

• The mn-N forms of possessive pronouns and of indefinite articles in the determiner subphrase

  • have no ending when they are not the last word of the entire phrase,
  • have a weak ending in a weak position when they are the last word of the entire phrase, and
  • have a strong ending in a strong position when they are the last word of the entire phrase.

• When a noun with a mn-G ending -(e)s follows – and only then –, some words in the determiner subphrase can get the weak mn-G ending -en. This happens

  • never with indefinite articles, demonstrative pronouns, or possessive pronouns (the expression *diesen Jahres, here and there found with calendar dates, is at least dubious – instead use dieses Jahres which is doubtlessly correct),
  • typically with all-, jeglich- and irgendwelch-, which are all not very frequent in singular, e.g. das Ende allen irdischen Lebens, and
  • optionally with other words, e.g. jedes Mannes or jeden Mannes.

• All other words in the determiner subphrase have strong endings.

Endings in the adjective subphrase

All words in the adjective subphrase, as far as they are declined at all, have the same endings, to wit

• weak endings when the first word of the subphrase is in a weak position, and always in mn-G case

• strong endings when the first word of the subphrase is in a strong position, except in mn-G case.

For more than one adjective in a strong position, a variant with a strong ending on the first adjective and with weak endings on the remaining ones is also occasionally found, mainly in older literary texts.

The genitive forms of numerals greater than one have an -er in a strong position: zweier, dreier. Beyond three, this sounds slightly archaic, and beyond twelve, the genitive is avoided altogether and replaced by a construction with von, e.g. der Tod von fünfzig Männern.

When a numeral is the last word of the phrase, it can get an -en ending in the dative case:

Wievielen Schülern hast du das gegeben? – Fünfen.

The larger the number, the less frequently is this feature used. For two and three, it is mandatory, for numbers up to twelve (with the exception of seven where *siebenen would sound clumsy), it is quite commonly used, beyond twelve, it is awkward. The -e ending for p-NA numerals at the end of the phrase is obsolete but occurs in fixed expressions, e.g. alle Viere von sich strecken.

Endings in the noun subphrase

Nouns have only one kind of ending for each case; so they can either occur with their case ending (which is often void) or undeclined. Normally they have their case ending, with some exceptions:

• In weak noun declension, that is, when the mn-DA form differs from the mn-N form, the simpler mn-N form ist used instead of the mn-DA form when the noun appears isolated. This avoids confusion with plural forms: von Mensch zu Mensch, der Unterschied zwischen Mensch und Affe but der Unterschied zwischen einem Menschen und einem Affen. Nonetheless: sich etw. zu Herzen nehmen (to take sth. to heart), von Herzen kommend (heartfelt).

• Of a sequence of titles and names in strong position – which is the usual position for names –, only the title Herr and the last of the names is declined: Walters, Herrn Walter Müllers, Direktor Walter Müllers. In a name containing von, the given name is declined when the clause with von specifies this individual person (e.g. Walthers von der Vogelweide) but the last name when the von belongs to the family name (e.g. Gertrud von Le Forts).

• Of a sequence of titles and names in weak position, only the first title, but never names or the title Doktor, is inflected: des Walter Müller, des Herrn Walter Müller, des Doktor Walter Müller (always written as Dr. Walter Müller), des Direktors Walter Müller. Reasons for weak position of names could be:

  • usage of adjectives or possessive pronouns: der nette Herr Müller, unser Herr Müller (in a business letter, meaning “Mr. Müller of our company”)

  • in the genitive, avoidance of inflecting a name with a final sibilant: des Erasmus von Rotterdam, only for well-known names

  • avoidance of erroneous stress on the given name when a person puts his given name after the family name according to Bavarian custom: der Weiß Ferdl, der Kiem Pauli.

Examples

Here are some phrases with their decomposition into the three subphrases. The determiner subphrase is marked with green background colour when its last word has an ending, and with yellow background colour when it is void or its last word has no ending. The adjective subphrase is marked with green or yellow background colour depending on whether the words underly weak or strong declension. The only case where the two colours do not match is when a mn-G form of an adjective occurs in strong position as in example 23.

Examples 1–8 are the declensions for the four classes with definite and indefinite article. Examples 9–18 and 20–23 demonstrate the effect of the assignment of the words to the determiner and adjective subphrase. In example 20 two different assignments are possible, yielding different endings in the adjective subphrase; only in the p-D case the endings happen to be the same. In example 21 two different n-G endings are possible in the determiner subphrase. The noun subphrase in examples 18–20 is void, either because of a lacking noun or of an adjectival noun. The special rules about strong and weak position after personal pronouns are exemplified by examples 24–25.