German Grammar * Review & Exercises

GENITIVE CASE

The genitive case is used to indicate possession and ownership. While German uses the case to do this, English typically uses the preposition "of", or an apostrophe with an "s". An "s" is used in German only with personal names, and an apostrophe only when a name ends in a "hissing" sound (s, z, ß, x).

die Farbe dieser Hose - the color of these pants
das Haus meiner Eltern - my parent's house
Georg's Freundin - Georg's girlfriend
Franz' neues Auto - Franz' new car

The owner is in genitive case, preceded by the owned object. If the owner is referred to by personal name, it comes first.

Formation:

Masculine and neuter: des, dieses - eines, keines
Feminine and plural: der, dieser - einer, keiner

Feminine and plural nouns do not add endings. However, masculine and neuter nouns add an -s (-es for monosyllabic nouns): des Mädchens, des Berges
Note the following irregular weak (masculine and neuter) nouns with different endings:
der Name - des Namens (instead of des -en)
der Gedanke - des Gedankens
das Herz - des Herzens (the only weak neuter noun in German)
der Friede - des Friedens (today "der Frieden")

The following prepositions require the genitive case:
anstatt, statt - instead of
trotz - despite
wegen - because
während - during

Beispiele:
1. Trotz des schlechten Wetters ging er hinaus. (He went outside despite the bad weather).
2. Er kam wegen eines Unfalls zu spät. (He arrived late because of an accident).
3. Statt eines Pullis kaufte sie eine Jacke. (She bought a jacket instead of a pullover).
4. Er schlief während des Vortrags ein. (He fell asleep during the lecture).

The following verbs are used with genitive constructions:

Notes:

1. "Ownership" may be rather abstract and not obvious: die Spitze des Berges (the peak of the mountain), der Inhalt dieser Tasche (the content of this bag).
2. A possessive article does not necessarily imply genitive case: Meine Schwester wohnt in München. (My sister lives in Munich. "Meine Schwester" is nominative case.) - Der Mann meiner Schwester kommt aus Freising. (My sister's husband is from Freising. Here, "meiner Schwester" is genitive case, indicting the relationship between her and her husband).
3. The genitive case indicates non-specific time: eines Tages - some day
4. In current (spoken and increasingly written) German, there is a tendency to replace genitive case with dative case, both for the case as such ("der Brief von meiner Mutter", correctly "der Brief meiner Mutter" [my mother's letter]), and for prepositions ("wegen meinem Vater" correctly "wegen meines Vaters" [because of my father]. This is not proper, though. If for no other reason, it is necessary to be familiar with the genitive case in order to be able to identify and understand it.

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