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Past perfect of sterben: haben or sein? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4779 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 1 of 13 15 January 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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While reading a book in German I came across this excerpt: "als sie einen langsamen, quallvolen Tod gestorben waren"
I do understand its meaning but I find it a little confusing from the grammatical point of view. According to Hammer's all the verbs that form the perfect with sein are intransitive verbs and I do realize that sterben is indeed an intransitive verb most of the time but in this particular case it isn't. Tod is its direct object as proven by the fact that it is in the accusative. Hammer's also explains that the choice of haben or sein is not automatic and depends on the meaning of the verb as illustrated by the case of the verb fahren. My question is then, would "....Tod gestorben hatten" also (or instead) be valid here? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5711 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 13 16 January 2014 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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It's certainly with 'sein'!
I think you call that an object complement. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6006 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 3 of 13 16 January 2014 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
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As in French, to be born and to die are conjugated with "sein".
The logic behind it is a change of status (the same goes for "to fall asleep" and "to wake up"). Edited by Luso on 16 January 2014 at 12:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4779 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 4 of 13 16 January 2014 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
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@Bao - Ok maybe I didn't word my question properly. It's not a matter of believing that that is the correct form. I'm just trying to understand the grammar behind it. Are you referring to objective components? I did google that but it's not the same. This is the definition for objective component that I found:
A noun, adjective, or pronoun serving as a complement to a verb and qualifying its direct object, as governor in They elected him governor. In the example I gave however, Tod is not qualifying an object. It is the object. @Luso - Thanks for the input but that's not my question. I do know that sterben is usually (i.e., when it doesn't have an object) conjugated with sein and you're right, it's because, like you said, it describes a change of status. However, in this particular case sterben does have a direct object (i.e., it is not intransitive). The problem is, supposedly all verbs that form the perfect with sein are intransitive. I found this link which may shed some light on this issue. Apparently the transitivity/intransitivity of verbs is debated by some and it seems that "einen Tod sterben" is one of the points of contention because sterben admits only object which is Tod. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5711 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 13 16 January 2014 at 4:27am | IP Logged | ||
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It isn't the object. Tod isn't the one dying. It's the person dying, no matter if their death is painful or peaceful.
That's what a complement is, it's a part of the sentence which is not completely essential for the sentence to work, and it describes - complements - another part of the sentence, in this case the act of dying. And yes, transitivity is not absolute. You can drop the objects of transitive verbs, and you can add non-essential ones to intransitive verbs. But for most of the verbs and in most of the cases it's a useful distinction. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4779 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 6 of 13 16 January 2014 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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It is the object. It is what you die. You die a death.
The object of dying is not the person that dies. That would be the subject. The only possible direct object for dying is death. You don't die someone or something. You die a death. You're probably mistaking it for killing. Killing does take a person/animal/whatever as object. Not dying. Therefore according to the definition I provided Tod isn't an objective complement. It does not characterize a direct object. It is the direct object. It is what is being "died". Concerning transitivity. Sure there is plenty of verbs (called ambitransitive) that can be used both transitively and intransitively. Ex.: I cooked meat (meat as direct object) vs. I cooked yesterday (no object, just yesterday working as a temporal complement). Verbs that are purely transitive however, do require a direct object. You have to say I need X or I make X. On the other hand some verbs simply cannot take a direct object. You say just I fall. Not I fall X. You may fall in different ways (i.e. you can append complements) but you don't fall someone or something. So, no, you cannot change transitivity at will unless the specific verb happens to allow it. But that's not even the point. I can deal with these ambitransitives without any issues. When they are used transitively I use haben because transitives always take haben (Ex.: Ich habe mein Fahrrad gefahren, Ich habe Fisch gekocht). When they are used intransitively I check for the conditions that tell me if they should be used with sein or haben. Is it a verb of motion? Does it describe a change of state? Does it convey the idea of happening, failing? etc. If yes I use sein. If not I use haben (Ex.: Ich bin gestern gefahren, Ich habe gestern gekocht). I can't however, use this algorithm for sterben. It works when there's no object (just use sein because there's a change of state) but it doesn't if you use it with Tod because you don't use haben which is what you expect of a transitive verb. And this is what I mean when I say "einen Tod sterben" is a point of contention. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5243 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 7 of 13 16 January 2014 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||
It should be "als sie eines langsamen, qualvollen Todes gestorben waren", with a genitive. But there are so many people writing books these days, one never knows ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5505 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 13 16 January 2014 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just mentioning out of interest (a sort of "compliment of thread") that in English you can say "he died a long
and painful death" but you can only use "died a death" on its own with respect to objects, in a slightly ironic style: "my computer died a death". And then you can't really just say "he died a long death" on its own either, but maybe you could say "he died a slow death" or better, "he died a long, slow death". Languages are just too weird to try to categorise too much. edit: the french have a simpler word for it: "agoniser" Edited by schoenewaelder on 16 January 2014 at 5:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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