# ein wunderbarer Tag / der Tag ist wunderbar (inflection, adjectives)



## Anne Frank

Hi there! it''s an ex from a German textbook. Tell me please why in the discrition the word is wunderbar, but in the text itself the word is wunderbar*er*? What is the difference? What the difference depens on?


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## manfy

der Tag -> ein wunderbarer Tag
die Frau -> eine wunderbare Frau
das Wort -> ein wunderbares Wort


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## Anne Frank

manfy said:


> ...
> 
> der Tag -> ein wunderbarer Tag
> die Frau -> eine wunderbare Frau
> das Wort -> ein wunderbares Wort


So what's the thing about the difference?


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## manfy

Anne Frank said:


> So what's the thing about the difference?


In German you must inflect adjectives based on casus, numerus, genus of the noun they modify. "Wunderbar" is just the base form.


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## Anne Frank

manfy said:


> In German you must inflect adjectives based on casus, numerus, genus of the noun they modify. "Wunderbar" is just the base form.


OK, but look, Tag and Tag are both masculine why the forms differ?


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## Demiurg

Anne Frank said:


> OK, but look, Tag and Tag are both masculine why the forms differ?


"Der Tag ist wunderbar" is predicative use (uninflected) while "der wunderbar*e* Tag" / "ein wunderbar*er* Tag" is attributive use (inflected).


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## manfy

Anne Frank said:


> OK, but look, Tag and Tag are both masculine why the forms differ?


Der Tag/Die Frau/das Wort ist wunderbar.
Here the adjective is used as a subject complement, not as an attributive adjective, therefore it keeps its base form.

That changes when it performs an attributive function:
Ein wunderbarer Tag hat begonnen. (masc., singular, nominative)
Zwei wunderbare Tage haben begonnen. (masc. plural)
Ich mag diesen wunderbaren Tag. (masc, sing, accusative)
aso, asf.

Inflection of adjectives is a very basic and very important part of German. You should be able to find plenty of info on the net. Here's some basic info on Wikipedia.

[cross-posted and agreeing]


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## Anne Frank

manfy said:


> Der Tag/Die Frau/das Wort ist wunderbar.
> Here the adjective is used as a subject complement, not as an attributive adjective, therefore it keeps its base form.
> 
> That changes when it performs an attributive function:
> Ein wunderbarer Tag hat begonnen. (masc., singular, nominative)
> Zwei wunderbare Tage haben begonnen. (masc. plural)
> Ich mag diesen wunderbaren Tag. (masc, sing, accusative)
> aso, asf.
> 
> Inflection of adjectives is a very basic and very important part of German. You should be able to find plenty of info on the net. Here's some basic info on Wikipedia.
> 
> [cross-posted and agreeing]


So,  wunderbar doesn't difine the word Tag?


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## berndf

manfy said:


> Der Tag/Die Frau/das Wort ist wunderbar.
> Here the adjective is used as a *subject complement*, not as an attributive adjective, therefore it keeps its base form.


in German and English, the usual term is _prädikatives Adjektiv _/ _predicative adjective_. _Subject complement_ is a translation from French terminology and maybe not readily understandable.

@Anne Frank : Basically, predicate adjectives are uninflected and attributive adjectives are inflected and the ending also depends on the definiteness status of the noun phrase:
_Der Tag ist schön_ (predicative)
but
_Der schöne Tag_ (attributive with definite article)
and
_Ein schöner Tag_ (attributive with indefinite article)


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## berndf

Anne Frank said:


> So,  wunderbar doesn't difine the word Tag?


It does but syntactically it is a predicative and not an attributive adjective, i.e. it is an extension on the predicate and not part of the noun phrase. But semantically it is a property of _Tag_ in both cases.


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## Anne Frank

berndf said:


> It does but syntactically it is a predicative and not an attributive adjective, i.e. it is an extension on the predicate and not part of the noun phrase. But semantically it is a property of _Tag_ in both cases.


It like... more refers to the verb 'sein' here?


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## Anne Frank

berndf said:


> in German and English, the usual term is _prädikatives Adjektiv _/ _predicative adjective_. _Subject complement_ is a translation from French terminology and maybe not readily understandable.
> 
> @Anne Frank : Basically, predicate adjectives are uninflected and attributive adjectives are inflected and the ending also depends on the definiteness status of the noun phrase:
> _Der Tag ist schön_ (predicative)
> but
> _Der schöne Tag_ (attributive with definite article)
> and
> _Ein schöner Tag_ (attributive with indefinite article)


You mean it's all because of the verb 'sein' in the description and its absence within the text? As far as I got it.


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## berndf

Anne Frank said:


> You mean it's all because of the verb 'sein' in the description and its absence within the text? As far as I got it.


Yes. The syntactic structure is maybe not easy to grasp because predicates and be interrupted but the syntactic structure of the sentence is:
*Warum*_ *ist*_ _*sein Tag*__ *wunderbar*?_
*Blue*: Question adverb
*Green*: Subject
*Red*: Predicate
I.e. syntactically, _wunderbar _belongs to _ist_ and the subject _sein Tag_ is inserted in between. This "verb bracketing" is quite typical German. It can even affect parts of the verb itself like in _er *sieht* den Hund *an*_ (he looks at the dog), where the verb _ansehen_ is cut in two parts and brackets the object _den Hund_.


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## Anne Frank

berndf said:


> Yes. The syntactic structure is maybe not easy to grasp because predicates and be interrupted but the syntactic structure of the sentence is:
> *Warum*_ *ist*_ _*sein Tag*__ *wunderbar*?_
> *Blue*: Question adverb
> *Green*: Subject
> *Red*: Predicate
> I.e. syntactically, _wunderbar _belongs to _ist_ and the subject _sein Tag_ is inserted in between. This "verb bracketing" is quite typical German. It can even affect parts of the verb itself like in _er *sieht* den Hund *an*_ (he looks at the dog), where the verb _ansehen_ is cut in two parts and brackets the object _den Hund_.


I can't remember something like that in English. They just don't change. Complicated.


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## berndf

_Why is his day wonderful?_

It is the same syntactic structure. But because English adjectives are never inflected, you don't have to think about it.


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## Anne Frank

berndf said:


> _Why is his day wonderful?_
> 
> It is the same syntactic structure. Just because English adjectives are never inflected, you don't have to think about it.


That's what I'm saying. So how am I
 supposed to know when I should or shouldn't inflect?


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## JClaudeK

Anne Frank said:


> Tag and Tag are both masculine why the forms differ?





Anne Frank said:


> So how am I supposed to know when I should or shouldn't inflect?



Vielleicht hilft Dir das weiter
Именная группа — Википедия
(weitergeleitet von *Nominalphrase*)

Oder such auf Russisisch "Determinansphrase – Wikipedia"!


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## berndf

Anne Frank said:


> That's what I'm saying. So how am I
> supposed to know when I should or shouldn't inflect?



Inflected attributive adjectives always precede the head noun. The fact that the adjective occurs after the noun is sufficient to know that is must remain uninflected. There are some rare cases where attributive adjectives follow the noun but they are luckily uninfected as well.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> The fact that it occurs after the noun is sufficient to know that is must remain uninflected.


Der Tag ist ein wunderbarer.


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## berndf

This is elliptic for 
_Der Tag ist ein wunderbarer Tag._
And the presence of the indefinite article indicates that. But I agree, ellipsis can add an additional layer of complexity to the syntactic analysis.


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## elroy

Yes, I know why it’s inflected.  What I’m saying is that your trick (_“The fact that the adjective occurs after the noun is sufficient to know that is must remain uninflected”_) may be misleading for someone who hasn’t mastered the system yet. 

Another one: Wunderbar ist der Tag.


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## elroy

Anne Frank said:


> You mean it's all because of the verb 'sein'


It’s not just “sein”:
Der Tag *bleibt/wird/wirkt/erscheint *wunderbar.
Der Tag *fühlt* *sich* wunderbar *an*.
Der Tag *kommt* einem wunderbar *vor*.
Der Tag *erweist sich als* wunderbar.


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## Hutschi

I agree to the others, I just want to give examples in Russian language because Russian and German are more similar concerning inflection.

_Das ist ein *wunderbarer Tag*_ is similar to 
Это _ *прекрасный день*./Это чудесный день. 
You will have to decline it when used in more complex sentences. 
Example: без прекрасного дня ... =  Ohne einen wundervollen Tag  - The adjective is declined=inflected.


Der Tag ist wunderbar - День чудесный. 
"Чудесный" will not be declined when used this way._
In Russian language "ist" is no extra word in this sentence.


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## elroy

Hutschi said:


> Russian and German are more similar concerning inflection.


How so?

In English, the adjective is not inflected in either position (attributive or predicative).
In Russian, it’s inflected in both.
In German, it’s inflected in one position and not the either.

I’m afraid neither English nor Russian is more helpful than the other when it comes to learning when to inflect adjectives in German.  

Russian is more similar to German than is English in that Russian, like German and unlike English, inflects adjectives _überhaupt_ and has a case system, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.  We’re talking about _when_ to inflect adjectives, not _how_.


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## Hutschi

elroy said:


> Russian is more similar to German than is English in that Russian, like German and unlike English, inflects adjectives _überhaupt_ and has a case system




That was my point. But in the given case, the case system is similar, too. (Not the exactly the same of course.)

I do not know about others but for me it is always easier when seeing similarities.


May be I used a wrong form and it should be:  День чудеснo. In this case it is even more similar to German.

---


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## elroy

Hutschi said:


> May be I used a wrong form and it should be: День чудеснo.


I don't think so.  I don't know Russian, but I do know that in Polish the adjective is inflected in both cases, and I imagine it's the same in Russian.

(Ten) dzień jest *wspaniały*. = Der Tag ist *wunderbar*.
To jest *wspaniały* dzień. = Das ist ein *wunderbarer* Tag.


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## zaffy

elroy said:


> (Ten) dzień jest *wspaniały*.
> To jest *wspaniały* dzień.


Yes, correct, but the pronoun can't be omitted in the first one. "Dzień jest wspaniały." doesn't make sense.


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## zaffy

elroy said:


> In English, the adjective is not inflected in either position (attributive or predicative).





elroy said:


> I do know that in Polish the adjective is inflected in both cases,


It is not in Polish and your examples prove that. You used "wspaniały" in both cases.


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## berndf

To my knowledge, German is unique in that it inflects prepositions attributive adjectives but does not inflect predicative and postpositioned attributive adjectives. It wasn't always so. Before the 18th century inflection was possible but optional in nominative and accusative in any context (attributive is of course always nominative) and the current distribution finally became grammaticalized in the 18th century.


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## elroy

zaffy said:


> It is not in Polish and your examples prove that. You used "wspaniały" in both cases.


It _is_ inflected in both cases; it's "wspaniały" in both cases because it's _inflected_ in both.

"wspaniał*y*" is inflected for masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number.  Actually, Polish doesn't have any uninflected adjectives, which is probably the source of the confusion.

In German, "wunderbar" is uninflected; like "wonderful" in English, it's doesn't encode gender, case, or number.  "wunderbar*er*" is the equivalent of "wspaniał*y*": it encodes masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number. 



berndf said:


> To my knowledge, German is unique in that it inflects prepositions attributive adjectives but does not inflect predicative and postpositioned attributive adjectives.


Can you give an example of a postpositioned attributive adjective?

Dutch also inflects attributive adjectives and doesn't inflect predicative adjectives: 

het *grote *huis = das *große* Haus
Het huis is *groot*. = Das Haus ist *groß*.


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## manfy

elroy said:


> Can you give an example of a postpositioned attributive adjective?


Da sah er ein Mädchen gar *lieblich und fein*, bekannt als Femme *Fatale *und er ließ sie nicht ein, und aß weiter an seiner _Forelle *blau*_. 
Postpositives are rather rare in modern German but you can see them from time to time.


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## zaffy

elroy said:


> It _is_ inflected in both cases; it's "wspaniały" in both cases because it's _inflected_ in both.


Ah, sorry, I misread your post. I thought you meant the inflections were different for each case.


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## berndf

manfy said:


> Postpositives are rather rare in modern German but you can see them from time to time.





In modern use you find it most frequently in product descriptions.


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