163. The Genitive Case

163.  The Genitive Case  

The third of the cases in German is called the Genitive Case. This case tends to be used less in conversation and more in literary situations. So, the Genitive Case is found more in novels, books, newspaper articles and is probably the least used of the cases.

Basically, this case is used to indicate ownership or possession. In English, this is shown whenever we use  's,  s'  or 'of'. The pupil's teacher, the babies' parents, the name of the book are examples when German may well use the Genitive Case. In these examples notice that we are using two nouns / names in combination. In German we usually have to turn these phrases around and translate them literally as:  the teacher of the pupil,  the parents of the babies,  the name of the book.

We should look at each of these phrases in a sentence ..

The teacher of the pupil is very nice   ....  the teacher is the subject, therefore in the Nominative Case and the pupil 'owns' the teacher and as such is in the Genitive Case.

The parents of the babies are old .... the parents provide the action & are in the Nominative Case and the babies 'own' the parents and as such are used in the Genitive Case.

The name of the book is unknown ..... The name is Nominative & the book is Genitive

Now we will see a change in the definite article with the new case...

For Masculine & Neuter words, it is  'des' and for Feminine Nouns & Plurals it is 'der'.

To complicate this a little further, the masculine and neuter nouns add an 's'  or 'es' (shorter words).

Let's set up a table now for our definite articles showing each case with the genders

                    Masc           Fem         Neut         Plural

Nom            der               die            das            die           (Subject)

Acc             den               die            das            die           (Object)

Gen             des               der           des            der          (Possession)

Beispiele

*  the pupil's teacher .....  der Lehrer des Schülers (m)  /  der Schülerin (f) ist nett.

*  the babies' parents  ....  the parents of the babies ... die Eltern der Babys sind alt.

* the name of the book .... der Name des Buchs ist unbekannt.  (Note Eng. here - 'of' is used more       often than the 's when objects are being spoken of.)

More samples of the Genitive shortly!

Bronze statue by the Neckar Bridge - I think it is a monkey!