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German Without Toil - "schlechter Laune" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5364 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 21 13 October 2011 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Can someone please clarify this for me? I've come across something in the old Assimil German (Deutsch ohne Mühe/German without Toil) that doesn't make sense to me. I waited a few more lessons to see if there would be some explanation, but it hasn't come up yet. It is from lesson 36, "Ein Unglück kommt selten allein":
--Na! alter Freund, wie kommt es denn, dass Sie hier sind? Sind Sie nicht auf das Land gegangen? --Sprechen Sie nicht davon. Wir sind gestern früh hingegangen und schon gestern abend zurückgekommen. --Was ist denn passiert? --Zuerst hat sich unser Mädchen geweigert mitzukommen. Meine Frau hat sich geärgert und hat sie sofort entlassen. --Das war ein schlechter Anfang. --So sind wir ohne Mädchen abgefahren. Auf dem Land hat es den ganzen Tag geregnet. Es war kalt und feucht. Wir waren müde und schlechter Laune. My question is about the last sentence, "Wir waren müde und schlechter Laune." Why is this "schlechter" and not "schlechte"? only a few sentences earlier they say "schlechter Anfang," which makes sense because "schlecht" has to correspond with (der) Anfang. But Laune is feminine, which makes me think it would be "schlechte" and not "schlechter" Laune. There are no prepositions preceding it to make it change to the dative case, so why is it like that? Even when I Google "schlechter Laune," it auto-corrects and says "do you mean 'schlechte Laune'?" the only "schlechter Laune" I find are "bei schlechter Laune," "mit schlechter Laune," usw, because they follow dative prepositions. Is this some nuance of the language? Any clarification would be great. Edited by tennisfan on 13 October 2011 at 11:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emiliana Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5118 days ago 81 posts - 98 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Arabic (classical) | Message 2 of 21 13 October 2011 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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ok I'm definitley not a grammar geek but "schlechter Launer" in this case is either Genetiv or Dativ (it is really easy to mix these cases up in German...).
Anyway maybe it gets clearer to you if you add "von" into the sentence: "Wir waren müde und von schlechter Laune." This is really a difficult grammatical expression. By the way it is also a bit outfashioned, only "(educated) high society people" would say that nowadays. Also the word "Mädchen" (for servant) in this dialogue is really noooooot up to date anymore. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5364 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 3 of 21 13 October 2011 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes! with "von" that makes it make sense, because "von" requires the dative, so it would become "schlechter." So you're saying that it is implied that it is "von schlechter Laune"? i.e., that it is an entire phrase "von schlechter Laune sein," and one can just drop the "von" while keeping the "implied" dative even though "von" is not there? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 21 14 October 2011 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There is no "von" in the sentence and no compelling reason to claim that one is implied. In my opinion it is simply an oldfashioned use of the genitive. You could see the construction as a parallel to "(Leute) schlechter Laune" with an attributive "schlechter Laune" (maybe inspired by similar uses of the genitive in Latin?), and - following in the footsteps of adjectives and prepositional phrases - this nominal phrase in the genitive has apparently slipped into the role of subject predicate in the sentence.
There are other cases where verbs are used somewhat surprisingly with genitives instead of an object in the accusative, like "Er erfreut sich bester Gesundheit" (quoted from the German Wikipedia) or "Er erfreut sich deswegen". And in some cases the role seems to be adverbial: "Meines Erachtens .." (= "in my opinion") By the way, it seems that the maid was the only person with some sense in her head - the family should have kept her in their service! Edited by Iversen on 14 October 2011 at 1:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4833 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 5 of 21 14 October 2011 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The best way to begin my reply with my two cents is by saying: Ignore this. It is very
old and no one would use this. Now, my second note will be my most foolish post as I intend to disagree with Iverson and say it IS actually because of an understood preposition, but rather than 'von' I would say it's actually meant to be 'bei'. Wir waren müde und (bei) schlechter Laune. This of course is an old way of doing this as was previously stated, but that old way of forming this saying would have been: (bei/in) schlechter Laune sein Using the preposition 'in' would be even older and worse and I imagine just sound awful to native Germans now. Any comments from natives on my explanation would be welcomed. Be gentle though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5603 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 6 of 21 14 October 2011 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Wir waren schlechter Laune" is indeed genitive, no prepositions are involved.
It has become a bit of a high-brow expression, because nowadays the common folk would say: "Wir hatten schlechte Laune". As a native speaker I think Iversen is completely right, sorry Kyle, there is no need to mess around with prepositions.
Good guess, it may reflect the Latin use of the genitivus qualitatis: tristis animi sumus. Edited by Cabaire on 14 October 2011 at 8:17am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5324 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 7 of 21 14 October 2011 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is bad advice. Even though the Assimil example sentences sound really old, expressions such as "schlechter Laune sein" are still used in written German and to a lesser extent in spoken German. German learners should have at least heard about them, if they intend to read German literature. BTW, "schlecher Laune sein" belongs to the same group as: - frohen Mutes sein - seiner/ihrer etc. Meinung sein - gesenkten Hauptes - schweren Herzens You can find many more examples here. (Please ignore the last section "Im Neutschen," which reflects the bias of the web site owner and doesn't make any sense.) As you've probably figured out by now, most of these expressions are adverbial Genitive constructions.
Iversen definitely knows his grammar and, unlike yours, his explanation was spot on. BTW, native German speakers would neither use in schlechter Laune sein nor bei schlechter Laune sein. You've probably mixed this up with sentence constructions such as "Bei schlechter Laune geht er eine Runde joggen."
That's pretty much the only thing in your post that I agree with. Edited by Doitsujin on 14 October 2011 at 12:14pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 21 14 October 2011 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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So to sum up: in German the construction is called "Genitivus absolutus" (according to the link given by Doitsujin to Texttheater.net). In Latin it is called "genitivus qualitatis" according to Cabaire.
In the construction with the copula verb "sein" it will be logical to speak about a 'subject predicative', while you have to define it as some kind of adverbial with other verbs - but even here it refers back to the state of the subject. And yes, it is somewhat oldfashioned, but still in use (especially in writing) and still correct German. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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