Talk:German declension
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I'd be happy to read about when the nouns get any suffixes (like -s in genitive and -n in plural dative). After all, these belong to the declension, too. (The various forms of the plural need not be treated here, at least not necessarily in the first turn.) Adam78 00:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Unsrer/unser, eurer/euer
My Langenscheidt's german dictionary lists the first person plural genitive pronoun and the second person plural genitive pronoun as unser and euer, rather than unsrer and eurer. Could someone verify this? I am a german newb. --Sneftel 04:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
- I'd opine that 'unser' and 'euer' are possessive, rather than genitive. Therefore, I guess, English is lacking a real equivalent. Correct me, if I'm wrong.
- Indeed, for nouns, the possessive is a special case of the genitive. ("des Kaisers neue Kleider" = "The Emperor's New Clothes") However, genitive forms of the personal pronouns are not to be confused with the possessive pronouns or their genitive forms, respectively. ("Er erinnerte sich meiner." old-fashioned for "Er erinnerte sich an mich." = "He remembered me." vs. "die Eltern meiner Mutter" = "my mother's parents" or "the parents of my mother")
- Thus I also doubt that the statement
- "The English next to the genitive German forms is actually possessive case..."
- is true for pronouns. At least I can not think of any German sentence or expression including a personal pronoun in genitive case that becomes a possessive pronoun when translated into English. – Korako 09:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
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- Ah, that clears it up. My background is from latin, in which the possessive is the genitive. Thanks! --Sneftel 20:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
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