Legend underlined   introduced key term dark red   German-based spelling light blue   General Orthography    / /   phonemic    [ ]   phonetic    >   developed into    <   developed from    →   becomes (by rule)    ~   or; alternating with    “   ”   literally       link to further detail

Nouns: Inflection

The term “inflection” denotes the system of marking nouns, articles, pronouns and adjectives to show in which cases (or with which grammatical functions) they occur in a phrase or sentence.

Common to Germanic languages are the following cases:

Nominative: actor or agent Genitive: possessor or owner Dative: recipient or beneficiary Accusative: object

Or let’s say this in a less fancy way:

Nominative: subject—who or which does something Genitive: possessive—to whom or which something belongs Dative: indirect object—for or toward whom or which something is done Accusative: direct object—to whom or which something is done

You will hear people say things like “German has four cases; English, Dutch, Afrikaans and Low Saxon don’t.” This is incorrect. All languages have those cases, but they mark them differently. Using suffixes (i.e. endings), German has morphological marking of all four cases. Old English and Old Saxon used to have such a system as well, but they lost most of it over time. As a result, their syntax (word order) has become less flexible than it used to be, because word order helps to mark the cases.

Nominative: De Smidd gev’ den Möller sien Naver den Hamer. Dey smid geyv’ d’n möller syn naver d’n hamer. The smith gave the miller’s neighbor the hammer. Genitive:       den Möller sien Naver       d’n möller syn naver       the miller’s neighbor       or       de Naver vun den Möller ~ de Naver vun’n Möller       dey naver vun d’n möller       the neighbor of the miller Objective:     Dative:   De Smidd gev’ den Möller sien Naver den Hamer. Dey smid geyv’ d’n möller syn naver d’n hamer. The smith gave the miller’s neighbor the hammer.  Accusative:   De Smidd gev’ den Möller sien Naver den Hamer. Dey smid geyv’ d’n möller syn naver d’n hamer. The smith gave the miller’s neighbor the hammer.

As you can see, Low Saxon and English have the same choices and word order, at least in these examples. In most cases, the dative clause precedes the accusative case, but both cases have the same form. Therefore we can refer to them collectively as objective case.

Morphological differences between the nominative case and the objective cases are not great:

Definite Masculine Feminine Neuter   Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative: de Bull dey bul de Bullen dey bullen de School dey schoul de Schooln dey schoulen dat Kalf dat kalv de Kalver dey kalver Objective: den Bull den bul   the bull the bulls the school the schools the calf the calves

Indefinite Masculine Feminine Neuter   Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative: een Bull eyn bul Bullen bullen een(e) School eyn(e) schoul Schooln schoulen een Kalf eyn kalv Kalver kalver Objective: een(en) Bull eyn(en) bul   a bull bulls a school schools a calf calves

As you can see, the system is fairly simple. Nouns are not inflected at all. It is only with masculine nouns that the article is different in the nominative and objective cases (adding (e)n in the objective case), and this includes marking the possessor in the genitive case. In the first type of genitive construction the genitive form of a personal pronoun is used, in this case sien (syn) ‘his’. You will become acquainted with the others in the lesson about personal pronouns.

As you will have noticed, there are two possible genitive constructions. It may be argued that there are differences of usage between them. All you need to remember is that the first-mentioned construction usually requires that the possessor be a living being. However, this is only a general rule. You ought to try to keep it in mind and to use the second-mentioned construction whenever you are in doubt. (If you are familiar with Dutch dialects and with Afrikaans you will find the two constructions familiar; e.g. Afrikaans die molenaar sy buurman versus die buurman van die molenaar).

The indefinite article with masculine nouns is rarely changed, and if it is, then mostly in writing. Bear in mind that what is written as the ending –en is pronounced as a syllabic nasal consonant, pronounced [n̩] after –n. Those speakers that do pronounce the article differently in the objective cases simply lengthen the [n̩] to become [n̩ː]. You as a learner do not need to feel obligated to make this difference, neither in pronunciation nor in writing. You just need to be aware that a minority of speakers does make this difference.

As explained in the lesson about articles, dat can be shortened to ’t under some circumstances, een (eyn) to ’n under most circumstances. Speakers and writers that make the respective distinctions also say and write ’ne for eene (eyne) and ’nen for eenen (eynen).

In fluent speech modes, den is pronounced as a syllabic nasal consonant ([n̩], [m̩] or [ŋ̩̩], depending on the preceding consonant). This is because of a phonological rule that assimilates /d/ to certain other consonants. In other words, under many circumstances, mostly right after prepositions, den is pronounced and written the same way as shortened indefinite ’n. To distinguish the two in German-based spelling, abbreviated den follows a preposition directly, while abbreviated een is preceded by a space; e.g. up’n Diek ‘on the dike’ versus up ’n Diek ‘on a dike’. In the General Orthography, abbreviated den is spelled d’n, and appreviated eyn is spelled ’n, both of them preceded by a space; e.g. up d’n dyk ‘on the dike’ versus up ’n dyk ‘on a dike’.

Please keep in mind that there is no standard spelling, that in Germany people tend to write Low Saxon using German spelling rules and try to do so “phonetically” from the point of view of German pronunciation. German orthography distinguishes vowel length inconsistently, while the Low Saxon system (like that of Dutch and Afrikaans) is set up to distinguish vowel length consistently. The definite masculine accusative article in German is written den but is pronounced with a long vowel ([deːn]). Its Low Saxon objective equivalent ought to be spelled alike; because the vowel is not written double it must be pronounced short ([dɛn] ~ [dɛˑn]), German pronunciation notwithstanding. Despite this, some people write denn, denn’ or even dennen instead of simply den. Please be aware of it, but do not copy it.

Please bear in mind that in a few dialects, sometimes only in writing, –en is added to a small number of masculine nouns in the objective cases; e.g. He gev’ den Buurn den Hamer (Hey geyv’ d’n buren d’n hamer) ‘He gave the farmer the hammer’. (This would be He gev’ den Buur den Hamer (Hey geyv’ d’n buur d’n hamer) in most dialects.) Similarly, you would have eenen Bullen (eynen bullen). There appears to be no rule as to which nouns are treated that way. It seems to be a case of special marking. At any rate, there is no need for you to learn to which masculine nouns this applies. All you need to do is be aware that this phenomenon exists in some dialects.

Pronouns