We know already quite a lot, we know the pronunciation
of the words, we can conjugate in present tense and
we have seen the plural form. With this you can form
a lot different phrases. Before we go on to other phrases,
we have to talk about the objects, or better the direct
object (Accusative). Later on we'll also have a look
at the other declension chapter 9 -
German declension.
Let's
start with this phrase
The
dog sees the donkey.
Clearly not a difficult one and easy to understand:
the dog has his eyes on the donkey. How do you know
that it's not the donkey that has his eyes on the dog?
- the word order, right! And what if we change the word order:
Sees the donkey the dog. Who sees whom now? Well, the
word order is not anymore the way it is supposed to be
and we are not sure anymore. In other languages - Latin
for instance - you know from the suffix of the word
whether it is the subject, the direct or indirect object
etc. In English there are only rudiments of conjugation
that we find in some pronouns (personal, interrogative
and relative pronouns). In German the use is still wider
- in some cases the definite article changes with different
declension.
masculine
nouns
Example: der Mann
Nominative
(basic form)
Accusative (direct object)
Singular
der Mann
den Mann
Plural
die Männer
die Männer
neutral
nouns
Example: das Haus
Nominative
(basic form)
Accusative (direct object)
Singular
das Haus
das Haus
Plural
die Häuser
die Häuser
feminine
nouns
Example:
die Frau
Nominative
(basic form)
Accusative (direct object)
Singular
die Frau
die Frau
Plural
die Frauen
die Frauen
We see that the Accusative singular of the masculine noun is the only one that changes the article.
If you ask yourself why to make your life miserable
with declension if it is possible to do it another
way - well, my answer would be: ALL DIFFERENT - ALL
DIFFERENT ;-). We should enjoy the diversity and not
wonder or even complain about it. We all have history
as our languages as well. And not always is logic the
main object of the development of languages. More about
declension you'll find in chapter 9 -
German declension.
