Nomina und Pronomina - Noun and Pronouns - auf Deutsch
#1: der Nominativ

Noun phrases in a German sentences are in one of four grammatical cases:

1. Der Nominativ - the nominative
2. Der Akkusativ - the accusative
3. Der Dativ - the dative
4. Der Genitiv - the genitive

Noun phrases that are the subject of the German sentences are in the nominative case. Here are the noun phrases we have seen thus far, all in the nominative case:

der Junge - the boy der Mann - the man der Herr - the gentleman der Park - the park das Mädchen - the girl das Kind - the child das Land - the country die Frau - the woman die Ecke - the corner die Stadt - the city

Notice that the definite article "the" has three forms - der, die, das. In German, nouns in the singular - as opposed to plural, which means many - have grammatical gender: they are either masculine (der), feminine (die), or neuter (das). When you learn a new noun, it is VERY important to learn its gender. There is some natural gender among German nouns - der Mann, die Frau - but most of the time there are no obvious reasons why city is feminine in German, or why park is masculine. Therefore, you must learn the noun and its article in the nominative case. The nominative case article will tell you a noun's gender.

The definite articles in the nominative can be summed up as follows:

All thes words mean "the." There are even more forms of the definite article. We will examine these when we study the other three cases in German. Notice in the plural; there is no gender distinction, and the article "die" is used.

The indefinite articles in the nominative can be summed up as follows:

The indefinite articles all mean "a" or "an." They are called indefinite because the don't specify a particular noun. Compare "the house" with "a house." The former, the house, assumes a more detailed knowledge of the noun in question: "the house? the house we have been talking about for the last ten minutes." The latter, a house, is more general and non-specific: "a house? Any old house. Think of a house, it doesn't matter." Notice since there is no indefinite article for plural nouns - can we say in English "a houses" or "an apples"? - I use the possessive adjective mein, which means my. Study and learn the possessive adjectives. They behave exactly like "ein" in that they get the same endings as "ein" in all the cases.

A few exercises

Pronouns

Pronouns are little words which can replace noun phrases in a sentence. Examine the chart and the meanings of these words. They can be subject of the sentence, as a noun phrase, and pronouns must also be in a case. When they are the subject of the sentence, pronouns are also in the nominative case.

	Singular	Plural
First Person Talking about yourself or yourself and others in your group.	Ich I	Wir we
Second Person, Informal Talking to someone, or a group of people. These people could be your friends, siblings, animals, children, parents, anyone you are on intimate terms with.	du you	ihr you
Third Person Talking about someone or a group of people.	er he, it sie she, it es it, she, he	sie they
Second Person, Formal Talking to someone or a group of people. These are people you are not on intimate terms with: adults you don't know, people in power, teachers/professors, etc.	Sie you. Always capitalized

Notice the third person singular pronouns, er, sie and es. They can be translated as human (he or she) or non-human (it) depending on the noun they replace. For instance, the pencil in German, der Bleistift, is masculine. It would be replaced in a sentence by er, a masculine pronoun. In this case "er" would mean "it."

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