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Help with German "compound infinitives" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| eccodandini Newbie United States Joined 5309 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 11 24 December 2012 at 1:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I've just about gotten halfway through Assimil German and up until this point I've had no problem
understanding any of the grammar. Until lesson 55, when they started talking about modal verbs used as part of what they call "compound infinitives." If someone could explain this or point me to a resource that can, I would appreciate it. The specific thing I don't understand is how the use of auxiliary verbs works in the past tense. The first time this comes up is in lesson 51, in the following sentence: "Ich habe um zwei Kästen Bier gewettet, und so hab' ich dann hinterher wenigstens in Ruhe trinken können!" It is this "trinken können" that gives me trouble. The question is: does this only occur in the past tense? and if there is no past participle, how does one know it is in the past tense? simply because of the "ich habe"? and does it mean then that it is incorrect to say: "... und so hab' ich dann hinterher wenigstens in Ruhe trinken gekonnt!" The further examples in lesson 56 confused me even more. How, for example, how is this: Wir haben nicht kommen können. different from this: Wir konnte nicht kommen. Both are in the past tense. so I don't understand a) whether this not-conjugated final auxiliary verb only occurs in the past tense, and b) how it differents from the simple past + infinitive. Any help? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5577 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 24 December 2012 at 3:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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Those are modal verb constructions, and their present and past perfect forms take present/past tense of haben + action verb infinitive + modal verb infinitive.
Using a participle in this case sounds a bit odd, though it's probably simply non-standard, not completely wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 11 24 December 2012 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, "können" is a mix of "can" and "to be able to", like this: Wir haben nicht kommen können. - We have not [been able to] come. Wir konnte nicht kommen. - We could not come. The end "result" is the same, but the phrasing is different. Think of many ways you can say that you have a book but for some reason it hasn't been read yet: I haven't read the book. I didn't read the book. I couldn't read the book. I haven't been able to read the book. I wasn't able to read the book. And so on... Basically each sentence is I + negation + read + book. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 24 December 2012 at 12:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4655 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 11 24 December 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
You know it's present perfect because of "ich habe". "Haben" + infinitive + infinitive of a modal verb only occurs in the present perfect. A similar construction is used in the future tense, but then you use "werden": "Ich werde nicht kommen können" ("I won't be able to come"). Using the past participle of "können" here would be a grammatical error.
The first sentence is present perfect ('Perfekt') while the second sentence is simple past ('Präteritum'). However, they both mean the same: "We couldn't come." But there's a mistake in the second sentence. It's supposed to be: "Wir konnten nicht kommen." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5872 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 5 of 11 24 December 2012 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice question. I sympathise with you, since I've had the same problem.
Maybe you could take a look at this page. I believe it's well-structured and, albeit in German, easy to understand. Colours do the trick for me. :) I'd like to add that previous replies already covered the topic but you might appreciate adding a new resource. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 6 of 11 24 December 2012 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The previous replies have chipped away at an answer, but I'll elaborate a bit if I
could. ------------------------------ First things first. At your stage of learning, simply forget there even is a past participle to modal verbs (gekonnt, gewollt, gemusst, etc.). It's not very often that you would ever even use them. There are some cases such as, "Das hätte ich viel besser gekonnt." where 'machen' can be omitted when it's obviously needed. But, "Das hätte ich viel besser machen können." would be just as suitable. The same as, "Ich kann das besser machen." and "Ich kann das besser." Or if you wanted to say, "I didn't mean to." you could say, "Ich wollte das nicht." or "Ich hab' das nicht so gewollt." But these are merely examples. Get the past participles of verbs out of your head. ------------------------------
Your next problem is that there actually is a past participle. When forming a perfect tense (haben + ???), the modal verbs remains in its infinitive form and acts as the past participle. Michel Thomas offers a very useful analogy when he relates them to different diving boards. Imagine a diving platform of varying tiers (while ignoring 'sein' verbs for the moment). No matter whether you step out onto level 1 (habe), level 2 (hatte), level 3 (hätte), etc... once you've used those verbs and you want to use another verb you're going to have to jump into the pool (past) and use a past participle. That's how you know you were in the past, but now you know that the modal verbs will remain in their infinitive form when acting as past participles in those constructions with another verb. ------------------------------ Your biggest problem though is that you're trying to make sense of a German mindset by means of your corrupted way of English thinking. To a German - the past is the past. As Jeff pointed out, there are many ways in English to establish what EXACTLY in the past. Don't do that in German. In English if you were to say, "We haven't been able to come." then this would indicate that over the period of an inditerminate amount of time you were unable to get someplace. For example - "We tried to come at 3PM, 5PM, 7PM and then also on Wednesday at 12PM, 2PM and 4PM, but the snow was still so deep that it was impossible." But if you were to say, "We couldn't come./We weren't able to come." then it would indicate that you weren't able to come at one specific time in the past (say 1PM) for whatever reason. Germans don't really do that. Again, the past is the past. If they feel they need to add a clarifier then sobeit (Wir haben dreimal versucht, aber wir konnten nicht kommen.) So getting back to your original example. "Wir haben nicht kommen können." vs. "Wir konnten nicht kommen." These mean the exact same things in German. They've established the past. However, you'd be hard-pressed to actually find a German who would say, "Wir haben nicht kommen können." ------------------------------ Hopefully that helps a little. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4560 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 7 of 11 25 December 2012 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Wir haben nicht kommen können."
is common in Austrian German and in Bavarian high language. ''Auch Vertreter der FCG und des ÖAAB schlossen sich dem an, lediglich der freiheitliche Kollege hat nicht kommen können oder dürfen, ich weiß es nicht''. Edited by Camundonguinho on 25 December 2012 at 6:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 8 of 11 26 December 2012 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
No... no... that's not right at all. Where did you get that information from? The only reason the sentence is built like that is because of stylistic reasons. The speaker is using two modal verbs to say, "[...] lediglich der freiheitliche Kollege hat nicht kommen können oder dürfen, ich weiß es nicht." This would be similar to saying in English -- "He couldn't come... or wasn't allowed. I don't know which." But since he's using two modals he can't say, "Er konnte nicht kommen oder dürfen." and build a proper sentence. It looks like you tried to Google "kommen können" and found this Austrian website (http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/BR/BRSITZ/BRSITZ_00679/ SEITE_0157.html) and then came to a ridiculous conclusion. I don't think you have a clue about what you're talking about. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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