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German - "Eines Nachts" | ||
Tags: German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5765 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 5 14 June 2009 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
Considering that in German the corresponding word for "night", die Nacht, is feminine, why is the masculine article used to form the genitive case? As far as I know, this never happens in any other phrase. Presumably, it's something to do with some form of old German. Also, are there any other peculiar cases like this? Thanks for your answers! Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 5 14 June 2009 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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Also possible is "des Nachts" (during nighttime, regularly; somewhat poetic)
Eines Morgens/Tages/Abends also exist - those are all masculine, and what I just found here suggests that this is an analogy; that the information that is conveyed by playing on the known phrases with Morgen/Tag/Abend should be deemed more important than grammatical correctness sounds plausible to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5765 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 3 of 5 14 June 2009 at 8:27pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Bao,
Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise that it sounded somewhat poetic. Are there any expressions like this which use a feminine noun with "eines" or "des"? The reason I ask is because it's theoretically grammatically wrong, because the genitive of "eine/die Nacht" is normally "einer Nacht/der Nacht". Thanks Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 14 June 2009 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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I can't think of any but maybe there are.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5765 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 5 of 5 14 June 2009 at 8:56pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Bao. Much appreciated, and thank you for the link.
Jack 1 person has voted this message useful |
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