Basic German adjective endings not making sense!

[ginlane]

Hi, I’m trying to understand about German adjectives, from what I can see they don’t seem to correspond to what I imagine they should! - As an example: 

the child das Kind
small child kleines Kind
the small child das kleine Kind

the children die Kinder
small children die kleinen Kinder
the small children die kleinen Kinder

So, the noun child and children is neutral, however where it says, “the small child” “das kleine Kind” it uses kleine. However the (e) ending denotes female! Very strange, why is that!!

Also, where it says, “the small children,” “die kleinen Kinder” it uses Kleinen. However the (en) ending denotes masculine??? what’s going on?

[Iversen]

German uses grammatical gender, not biological gender - one wellknown example being that "Mädchen" (girl) is neutrum because all dimininutives are neutra. "Kind" (child) is neutrum because that's just the way it is . Sometimes the grammatical gender corresponds to the biological gender, sometimes not. There are a few rules of thumb (check them in a grammar book), but essentially you have to learn the gender with each new noun - we have a thread somewhere with suggestions as to how to do this. If I find it I'll post the link here.

But there is a further complication: there are three sets of adjectival endings: one with an indefinite article (or some substitute), one set to be used when there is a definite article and one set when there is no article at all - but there could for instance be the word "etwas". I once made a green sheet to remind me of the basic setup. "Se" means "look","N" refers to the word "Noun" and I use the sign ¤ (a circle with a cross) to denote neutrum - the rest should be understandable. "Das kleine Kind" is regular and the endings can be seen in the table. Adjectives used as predicatives aren't inflected so I have not bothered to mention them in the table.

If you really like the colour green then the whole collection (so far) of green grammar sheets has got its own thread here. If you spot an error please inform me.

German-nominal-syntagm.jpg

[tastyonions]

It’s rarely as simple as “this adjective ending means that gender.”

der nette Kerl = the nice guy
ein netter Kerl = a nice guy

das rote Auto = the red car
ein rotes Auto = a red car

Basically if the article already gives you enough information to determine the gender of the noun, then the adjective ending will be kind of “neutralized” or “chopped off” (not sure what the actual name for this process is). The endings are called “strong” and “weak”:

https://lingvist.com/course/learn-germa ... e-endings/

[księżycowy]

Look at a chart (such as Iverson's) and you'll see for the plural all genders "collapse" into die and -nen for articles and adjectives. In this instance case is more important than gender.

Just for clarification: gender doesn't go away, it's just that you have to worry about case (and number) just as much.

EDIT 2: As tastyonions has brushed upon, the endings are also different in the presence of the definite and indefinite articles. So, basically there are three sets of endings. Sorry, I forgot about your earlier question with the -e ending.

Welcome to German.

[Cainntear]

Basically if the article already gives you enough information to determine the gender of the noun, then the adjective ending will be kind of “neutralized” or “chopped off” (not sure what the actual name for this process is). The endings are called “strong” and “weak”:

Editing to add strikethrough. My recollection has been shown to be faulty!
I believe it's generally considered as the adjective not being declined at all. As I recall it, there are various things that can go before a noun, and something is only declined for gender if the gender hasn't already been expressed unambiguously. The wrinkle that throws people is (IIRC) that you have to think in terms of "slots" (places before the noun where things of a particular word class can go) because every word in the same slot gets declined for gender if words in the previous slot didn't mark the gender, hence:
der große rote Tisch
die große rote Tür
Das große rote Buch
(neither adjective declined for gender) vs
Ein großer roter Tisch
Eine große rote Tür
Ein großes rotes Buch
(both declined for gender)

[Iversen]

I believe it's generally considered as the adjective not being declined at all

That's not how I recall the general opinion among the grammarians - on the contrary I have always read that German adjectives are inflected. But it's true that the endings of the adjective with an indefinite article are more varied and in some cases resemble those of the definite article, while that a simpler system with -en almost everywhere is used when combined with the definite article. But as long as the endings are attached to the end of the adjective it's an inflection we are looking at, not just some freefloating morphemes that jump from slot to slot. It's also misleading to say that the potential ending is 'chopped off'. The weak alternative to a strong ending is not nothing.

I have one observation more: I learned German in primary school, and as far as I remember it we we're only told about TWO situations: one with a definite article plus a noun and one with an indefinite article plus a noun - plus the predicative use, of course, but there the adjective isn't inflected. I only noticed the special situations without articles more than forty years later when I restarted my language studies - but I must have used the rules in the table during all those years in expressions as "etwas merkwürdiges" or "auf sicherem Boden". The most notable endings are the two -er's in femininum genitive and dative singular ("vor langer Zeit") because they differ from the -en with an article and/or demonstrative: "vor dieser langen Zeit" bzw "nach einer langen Zeit".

By the way, the article in the Anglophone Wikipedia states that the strong declension is the one used without an article, and the one with an indefinite article is called mixed. But I have always read that the strong declension is the one used with an indefinite article, so there seems to be some terminological confusion here.

[jeff_lindqvist]

By the way, the article in the Anglophone Wikipedia states that the strong declension is the one used without an article, and the one with an indefinite article is called mixed. But I have always read that the strong declension is the one used with an indefinite article, so there seems to be some terminological confusion here.

The way I remember it from my German classes:
definite article → weak declension
indefinite article (+mein, dein ..., kein) → strong declension

To me, this makes sense. The definite article is already "strong" (or informative) enough, so the adjective can remain weak.

[Dragon27]

The way I remember it from my German classes:
definite article → weak declension
indefinite article (+mein, dein ..., kein) → strong declension

To me, this makes sense. The definite article is already "strong" (or informative) enough, so the adjective can remain weak.

You should slightly revise your memory. Indefinite article (+mein, dein ..., kein) is mostly "strong" too (in the declension table only 3 out of 16 cells are without endings), so the adjective after it is mostly weak (also known as "mixed" in grammar manuals). Strong adjectival declension is when there's no articles (or possessive/negative pronouns, etc.) whatsoever before the adjective.

edit:
I said "revise your memory", but I didn't think that it could have been how they actually taught you. Is that actually true (that they used to teach that after the indefinite article the declension of the adjective is strong)? This terminological convention doesn't make sense to me, tbh.

[Dragon27]

Answering the original question, to me the whole system seems pretty straightforward (here I only look at the adjectives in attributive position in combination with definite/indefinite articles and possessive/negative pronouns).

There's a general "full" paradigm (the pattern of endings for all the cases, genders and numbers - 16 cells altogether) for which the declension of the definite article is a prototype (link to the table). In the table I provisionally consider certain cells as "declined" and "undeclined", to wit, Nom. sing. for all three genders and Acc. sing. for neut. and fem. are undeclined, all the rest are declined (including plurals). This kinda makes an intuitive sense to me.

The indefinite article declension is mostly the same (the same endings). The indefinite article has no plural, but the negative pronoun "kein" has; possessive pronouns mein/dein/etc. also have the same pattern. The difference from the "full" declension pattern (the declension pattern of the definite article) is in the masc. and neut. undeclined cells (three cells in all), in which the article has no endings (i.e. simply "ein/kein/mein..").

Adjectives have two declension patterns: strong and weak. The strong declension pattern has the endings that end on the same consonants that the endings in the abovementioned full paradigm, except for the Gen. sing. for masc. and neut. (where the endings are "-en" instead of "-es"). The weak declension pattern has only two endings: "-e" for the undeclined cells (5 cells), and "-en" for the declined cells.

The rest is obvious, when we want to choose an ending for the adjective we look if there are any articles/pronouns before the adjective that already have the declension info. If we either don't have any articles/pronouns, or the one we have doesn't have a declension ending (ein/kein/etc. without an ending), then the adjective takes that ending on itself (i.e. it has a strong ending), otherwise the adjective takes the weak ending ("-e" or "-en"). As a result, after the definite article the adjective only takes the weak endings, after 'nothing' (pure adjective) the adjective takes the strong endings, and after the indefinite article (or possessive/negative pronouns) the adjective takes the strong ending in 3 out of 16 cases and the weak ending in all the other cases (which is known as the mixed declension pattern).

Feel free to correct me if I mucked something up.

[Iversen]

Is that actually true (that they used to teach that after the indefinite article the declension of the adjective is strong)? This terminological convention doesn't make sense to me, tbh.

Yes, it's actually true that the socalled strong declension is the one used with indefinite articles - not only in German, but also in the other Germanic languages (insofar they have preserved their morphology). For instance we say "et rødt hus", but "det røde hus" in Danish (indefinite article vs. prepositioned definite article). The Swedes have "Röda huset" (a novel by Strindberg = 'red houseThe' - 'det röda huset' being allowed), but indefinite "ett rött hus". The distinction is even used for Icelandic, which doesn't have an indefinite article: rautt hús vs. rauða húsið.

The really confusing thing is however that substantives also are said to be strong or weak, but here it is an inherent property of each substantive, whereas it is a morphological thing imposed on an adjective (any adjective) by its surroundings. And the dichotomy is also extended to verbs, where the strong verbs are those that form their past tense with vowels changes, whereas the weak ones do it by adding an ending. It would be better to drop the distinction and stop speaking about weak and strong ones for adjectives and leave it to the word classes where it actually denotes an inherent characteristic.

I provisionally consider certain cells as "declined" and "undeclined", to wit, Nom. sing. for all three genders and Acc. sing. for neut. and fem. are undeclined, all the rest are declined (including plurals). This kinda makes an intuitive sense to me.

To me it feels kinda more intuitive to see all the positions in a declension as declined, but some with the 'empty' morpheme Ø. Only if no form has an ending (or other morphological marker) would I accept the word in that syntactical role as undeclined - like for instance the adjectival predicatives in German and English. However in for instance Danish adjectival predicatives are declined: "huset er rødt" but 'døren er rød' (with the empty Ø ending).