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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| adoggie Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6532 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 1 of 11 09 February 2010 at 8:41am | IP Logged | ||
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"Es war einmal ein Esel."
Now, why is Esel nominative and not accusative? Is Esel the same as es, linked by the past tense of sein? Or is this a typo? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5734 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 09 February 2010 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I have no idea what nominative and accusative are, but the sentence is correct. "Es war einmal.." is a fixed phrase which means "There once was..". For better explanations you'll need to wait for somebody with a working German grammar knowledge ;)
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 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 11 09 February 2010 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, ask me because I understand German grammar!
1. The example sentence is correct. 2. If you want to know, which case it is, you have to ask questions beginning with "w". 3. Wer war einmal? ein Esel! So "Esel" is the subject of the sentence, therefore in the nominative. If it were an accustative, you would have to find another person being the subject. 4. EDIT 5. The verb "sein" cannot have an accusative at all. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 09 February 2010 at 3:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5734 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 09 February 2010 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||
I applaud your command of our language's grammar, and I'll take your word on all grammar advice, but I'm pretty sure "es" doesn't refer to the Esel. It's simply the way to start a story. It could just as well be "Es war einmal, vor langer Zeit, dass ein Esel und ein Hund sich zufällig ueber den Weg liefen". "Es", in my opinion, simply refers to the 'happening'. To the story you're about to tell. What do you think? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 11 09 February 2010 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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The English translation of this sentence is: "Once upon a time there was a donkey."
Now we can discuss "Once upon a time there was". For me two things are clear: 1. "a donkey" = "ein Esel" is the subject of the sentence, therefore nominative. 2. The verb "to be" = "sein" never has an accusative object. Pyx, I agree with you on the point that "Once upon a time there was" rather is an introduction formula to tell a story than that it has a direct reference to "ein Esel". Being aware of that I will edit my previous post. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 09 February 2010 at 3:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 11 09 February 2010 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say that "es war" is just as nonpersonal as "es gibt" (cf. there is/are/was/were in English). Treat it as an expression.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 7 of 11 10 February 2010 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Even fixed expressions must once have had some kind of grammatical logic, and the person who first invented them must have done so based on the meaning of the words used. However constructions with dummy subjects like "es" are common in the European languages, and their users nowadays probably don't care about the inner logic - they just use the expressions until someone points out how strange they are.
If we just look at constructions that mean "there is" it is evident that many of them contain an adverb or pronoun with reference to a place, like "there". In Danish such a locative "der" (the Danish version of 'there') has become a relative pronoun/conjunction, and in that capacity it clearly functions as a subject ("..manden der kom.." = 'the man who came'). Furthermore "der" is used as a dummy subject in a sentence like "Der er noget galt" (---> noget er galt, cfr 'there is something wrong' ---> something is wrong). But it also has kept its locative meaning: "Der står det" ---> det står der (there it 'stands', ie. is written in a certain place). In Spanish you find "hay", made from a form of "haver" + "y", literally *"there has". This expression is weird in English, but the original logic must have been that if something exists, then 'something' must have (i.e. keep) it there. In the past tenses the 'y' is dropped and only a form of 'haver' remains. The German "es gibt" must also originally have been created by someone who saw existence as a question of the thing in question being 'given' by a nameless entity. "Es war" doesn't belong to either of these two groups, i.e. existence here is not seen in terms of being 'there' and not seen as something being 'had' og 'given' by the powers that be. Instead the "es" ('it') would be expected to point towards something that comes later, but it is problematic to see just one nominal phrase as the real subject of the phrase. So let's take a detour around another type of constructions. If you look at other constructions with a neutral demonstration they often have a whole sentence as the real subject: "Es is schön, daß Grammatik so beliebt ist" --> "Daß Grammatik so beliebt ist... ist schön". In Danish we call this construction a "sætningskløvning" (literally 'cleft sentence'). My totally unfounded guess is that constructions like "Es war" (and the Swedish "det är") have developed in situations where you may have had one nominal phrase as the real subject, but you had lots of things to tell about it: "Look ... It was this fellah, he ...". And then gradually people stopped thinking about its origins, and "Es war.." became a fixed expression. Edited by Iversen on 10 February 2010 at 12:40am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| adoggie Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6532 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 8 of 11 11 February 2010 at 6:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Can somebody explain why Herr is spelled Herrn in: "Jahr fuer Jahr musste er fuer seinen Herrn Saecke zur Muehle tragen." I think I recall reading that certain masculine accusative nouns take on an "n" at the end of the word, but I'm clueless as to which words this rule actually applies to.
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