# etwas Neues



## jamesjaime

I don't understand the word "_Neues_" in the following:

_Jedes Jahr gibt es etwas *Neues*._

Is it a noun? Or an adjective? Why does it have an -es ending, is it neuter and in the accusative? But if that's the case, surely it's an adjective? And if it is, it comes after the noun, so why isn't it just "_neu_"?

Ich verstehe nicht!


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## Bondstreet

See here:

What is the gender of 'etwas' ?
.


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## berndf

jamesjaime said:


> Is it a noun? Or an adjective?


Every adjective _xxx_ can serve as a noun with the meaning _the/a_ _xxx_ _one_, _something_ _xxx_ or _someone_ _xxx_, depending on context.


jamesjaime said:


> is it neuter and in the accusative?


Yes.


jamesjaime said:


> But if that's the case, surely it's an adjective?


No it's a noun. Nominalised adjectives retain there adjective declension pattern.


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## Perseas

From my 'non-native' point of view maybe the problem is here why does _Neues _serve here as a noun and not _etwas. _In the second case _Neues _would as adjective qualify _etwas_.
Cf. "_Du musst uns etwas erklären_": Doesn't _etwas_ have here nominal function?


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## elroy

berndf said:


> No it's a noun.


 I've never really thought about what the grammatical classification would be, but I find your analysis of it as a noun surprising.  I know it's capitalized, but if it's a noun how does it relate to "etwas"?  This isn't the same as "etwas Brot," is it?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> This isn't the same as "etwas Brot," is it?


Yes, _etwas_ is a _Indefinitpronomen_, like _viel_ or _wenig_.


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## elroy

But the meaning of "etwas" is totally different in each expression:

etwas Neues: something new - *one particular thing *that is new
etwas Brot: some bread - *an undefined quantity* of bread

Capitalization notwithstanding, it makes much more sense to me, from a synchronic perspective, to analyze "Neues" as an adjective modifying "etwas." 

Diachronically, perhaps the two originally had the same meaning, but they don't anymore.  And that might be why "Neues" is still capitalized.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Diachronically, perhaps the two originally had the same meaning, but they don't anymore. And that might be why "Neues" is still capitalized.


It is rather the opposite. In Early Modern High German this analysis would still have been possible. The position and declension of adjectives was much more flexible. An attributive adjective could be in front or after the noun, declined or undeclined and predicative adjectives could be declined or undeclined. Late Modern German is much more rigid: attributive adjectives are declined and fronted and in the rare cases where they occur after the noun they are undeclined (e.g. "Erbsen, fein" on a tin label) and predicative adjectives are undeclined. If you understand _neues _as an adjective and _etwas _as a noun (or noun equivalent) then you would have a post-positioned declined adjective. That is completely against all instincts of modern speakers.


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## elroy

I'm just saying that semantically it's adjectival: it modifies "etwas."  Whereas in "etwas Brot," it's "etwas" that modifies "Brot."

If "etwas Neues" is given the "etwas Brot" reading, then the meaning is "a certain amount of new stuff" - which we know is not the actual meaning, which is "one specific thing that is new."


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## Gernot Back

elroy said:


> I'm just saying that semantically it's adjectival: it modifies "etwas." Whereas in "etwas Brot," it's "etwas" that modifies "Brot."


No, in German, it's just like in English: In _some bread_ "some" modifies the _bread_, just like in _something new_, it is "something" that modifies/restricts _*all *that is new_. Otherwise it would be called a _new something_ and not _something new_. (Like in German, the adjective precedes the noun in English; not vice versa!)


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## berndf

elroy said:


> I'm just saying that semantically it's adjectival: it modifies "etwas." Whereas in "etwas Brot," it's "etwas" that modifies "Brot."


You can't have a semantic reading that is syntactically impossible. That's why your interpretation is blocked. Of course, if German had a different grammar than it has then the interpretation would be possible. But that is not the case.

Your are right that there are two different meanings of _etwas _involved in the two sentences: _etwas=something_ and _etwas=some_. The only possible analysis is that both meanings can be used attributively. Duden defines for the meaning _etwas=something_:
_<attributiv vor einem substantivierten Adjektiv oder Pronomen>: etwas Seltsames, was er gesehen hatte._​


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## elroy

Gernot Back said:


> in _something new_, it is "something" that modifies/restricts _*all *that is new_.


 No, in English "new" modifies "something." 

There are a number of cases in English where the adjective comes after the noun; this is not a problem in English.

Postpositive adjective - Wikipedia


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## berndf

elroy said:


> No, in English "new" modifies "something."


Yes, English syntax is in this respect closer to Early Modern High German. Post-positioned attributives are possible.


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## uress

Gernot Back said:


> _*all *that is new_


Eben. "Etwas von (all) den neuen Sachen".

Elroy, wie würdest du denn dann "alles Gute" deuten? _"All right"?_


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## Kajjo

I believe you all make the issue more complicated than necessary.

+ The word "Neues" is of course a noun, derived from an adjective.
+ The word "etwas" is an indefinite pronomen.

_Es gibt Neues zu berichten!
Es gibt viel Neues zu berichten!
Es gibt etwas Neues zu berichten!
Es gibt leider wenig Neues zu berichten!
Es gibt nichts Neues zu berichten!_

All the examples are absolutely analogous in structure. The indefinite pronomina add a kind of "amount" information.

Whether there are different necessary English translations of German "etwas" does not matter for German grammar. Both of the following examples are analogous for me. In both sentences the indefinite pronomen "etwas" modifies a noun. Nothing special in German:

_Ich habe etwas Brot gegessen.
Ich habe etwas Neues zu berichten._


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## Perseas

Kajjo said:


> _Es gibt Neues zu berichten!
> Es gibt etwas Neues zu berichten!_


_Es gibt etwas zu berichten! 
_
would be another example. Here "etwas" has another function (nominal). And hence my speculation (#4) if in "etwas Neues" you could read "etwas" as a noun and "neues" as an adjective.  Anyway, "etwas Neues" follows the logic of "alles Gute" as has been mentioned above.


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## Kajjo

Perseas said:


> _Es gibt etwas zu berichten! _would be another example. Here "etwas" has another function (nominal).


Yes, that is another case altogether. But "etwas Neues / etwas Gutes" are straight-forward as explained above.


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## Gernot Back

elroy said:


> No, in English "new" modifies "something."
> 
> There are a number of cases in English where the adjective comes after the noun; this is not a problem in English.
> 
> Postpositive adjective - Wikipedia


Be it in Wikipedia or not: I consider this analysis as simply and plain *wrong*!
The word order of _something new_ has nothing to do with Romance word orders as in _heir apparent_, _knight errant, spaghetti bolognese _ etc.. In _God Almighty_ we are dealing with two nouns in an apposition: _Gott, der Allmächtige_.


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## elroy

What makes you so sure??  German and English don't necessarily have to work the same way in every respect just because they're both Germanic! 

Intuitively, the German parsing of "etwas Neues" makes absolutely no sense to an English native speaker.  I totally disagree with Kajjo in #17 that it's "straightforward."  In 12 years of speaking German, I never once stopped to think about why "Neues" is capitalized, and its analysis as a noun, and the whole idea of the meaning being "something out of all that is new" is _totally_ non-intuitive to me.


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## Gernot Back

Why, if it were not a noun like a proper name, would you capitalize _Almighty _in _God Almighty_?


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## elroy

Huh?  That's only because the whole thing together is seen as one name, so both parts are capitalized.  Come on, Gernot, you normally have _way_ better arguments than that. 

And here's another argument.  In English, we can say "somewhere nice" as in "I want to go somewhere nice."  This is absolutely analogous to "I want something nice," but in "somewhere nice," it's obvious "nice" is not a noun because "somewhere" is an adverb and nouns can't modify or be modified by adverbs.  Therefore, we must conclude that "nice" is either modifying or being modified by "somewhere." Either way, it's not a noun.

(Note that I left it open as to whether "somewhere" is modifying "nice" or vice versa, because that's not crucial to the argument, but I think it's crystal clear, in English, that "nice" modifies "somewhere.")


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> I totally disagree with Kajjo in #17 that it's "straightforward."


Sorry, I did not want to provoke you with that statement. I just meant that it is very straightforward from the native German viewpoint.


elroy said:


> being "something out of all that is new" is _totally_ non-intuitive to me.


_etwas Neues = some pieces of news; some new messages
_
It does not focus on "something out of all that is new" but on "some pieces" of news. Can you follow this thinking?


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## elroy

Kajjo said:


> Sorry, I did not want to provoke you with that statement. I just meant that it is very straightforward from the native German viewpoint.


 No worries.  I just meant that it is just as non-straightforward to an English native speaker as it is straightforward to a native German speaker. 


> _etwas Neues = some pieces of news; some new messages
> _
> It does not focus on "something out of all that is new" but on "some pieces" of news. Can you follow this thinking?


 Hm, that helps.  Maybe what makes this so non-intuitive to an English native speaker is that "etwas" _also_ just means "something," and that's the basic meaning we get ingrained in us first, and since "etwas Neues" and "something new" look the same superficially, we instinctively understand this "etwas" as the same as the standalone "etwas."  "Etwas Brot" is not "something bread" so we intuitively recognize that _that_ "etwas" is different.  Also, there's absolutely no doubt that "Brot" is a noun, of course.

What's interesting, though, is that "etwas Neues" _in practice_ means "one particular thing that is new," right?  In other words, if I had _three_ new things to share with you, I wouldn't say "Ich habe etwas Neues zu berichten," right?  So it seems that the meaning of the standalone "etwas" definitely influences the ways in which "etwas Neues" is used... right?


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## bearded

Gernot Back said:


> In _God Almighty_ we are dealing with two nouns in an apposition: _Gott, der Allmächtige_.


Sorry, I do not agree. Take for example the UN Secretary General. If your theory were true, the Secretary should be a General, which he is not. I regard 'General' as a postponed adjective - I think though influence by the Romance languages.

Concerning 'etwas Neues', long ago I had the temptation to consider Neues  a genitive, like _etwas des Neuen_ (now of course I know it isn't), because if (like Kajjo said) ''indefinite pronomina add...an amount information'', I could not understand why you can say ''1 Liter guten Weins'' (indication of quantity + genitive) but ''etwas Wein'' (indication of quantity + no genitive).  In my reasoning I was of course influenced by the Italian language, where in both cases we say  _un litro *di *buon vino _(1 Liter von gutem Wein) and _un po' *di* vino _(etwas/ein wenig von Wein).
Today I know better, but with these expressions  (example: mit 1 Liter gutem Wein (like: mit ein paar guten Freunden)/mit einem Liter guten Weins/mit etwas gutem Wein...) I sometimes still hesitate -  For example, since 'etwas' means 'a little' the expression _heute ist es etwas feucht _is not ambiguous, whereas _mit etwas gutem Wein _sounds ambiguous to my ears (= with a bit of good wine, or with wine which is a little good)...


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> is that "etwas Neues" _in practice_ means "one particular thing that is new," right? In other words, if I had _three_ new things to share with you, I wouldn't say "Ich habe etwas Neues zu berichten," right?


In practice, this is correct. "Etwas" refers to one item or one set of items in this phrase. If there were a lot of new information, I would probably say "Ich habe ganz viel Neues zu berichten" (more likely, though, "Ich habe zahlreiche/etliche Neuigkeiten.").


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> But the meaning of "etwas" is totally different in each expression:
> 
> etwas Neues: something new - *one particular thing *that is new
> etwas Brot: some bread - *an undefined quantity* of bread


The more I think about it, the more I believe you have a point here, Elroy,

Anyway, _Neues _is a noun and _etwas _is an indefinite pronoun. But maybe "etwas Neues" could be analysed as "pronoun + apposition" rather than "pronon in front of quantified noun".


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## berndf

Kajjo said:


> The more I think about it, the more I believe you have a point here, Elroy,
> 
> Anyway, _Neues _is a noun and _etwas _is an indefinite pronoun. But maybe "etwas Neues" could be analysed as "pronoun + apposition" rather than "pronon in front of quantified noun".


It is uncontroversial that _etwas_ has two different meanings. Duden has that distinction as well. I quoted the analysis of this case. Duden analyses _etwas_ in this specific case as an attributive Indefinitpronomen as well although _etwas_ in other cases acts as a noun in this meaning.


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## Gernot Back

bearded man said:


> Take for example the UN Secretary General. If your theory were true, the Secretary should be a General, which he is not.


Like _heir apparent, heir presumptive,_ _commander-in-chief_ etc., _Secretary General_ is a classical example of Romance word order of Romance loan words in English, for which Hans Marchand coined the term  _inversion compound_.


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## Gernot Back

elroy said:


> No, in English "new" modifies "something."


By the way: How would you analyze _much new_ as in "There wasn't _much new_ about them" ?
Is _much _modifying (all that is) _new_, or is _new _modifying *_(all that is) much_?


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## elroy

Gernot Back said:


> "There wasn't _much new_ about them"


 That doesn't sound like a natural English sentence.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> Like _heir apparent, heir presumptive,_ _commander-in-chief_ etc., _Secretary General_ is a classical example of Romance word order of Romance loan words in English, for which Hans Marchand coined the term  _inversion compound_.


Post-positioned attributes are not alien to Germanic languages although pre-positioned ones have always been the the norm. It is a lost cause, if you are trying to persuade as that all occurrences must be explained differently. It is only German that has practically completely eliminated them and only in Late Late High German. Compare, e.g., _the man running swiftly_ and _der schnell laufende Mann_.


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## Gernot Back

elroy said:


> That doesn't sound like a natural English sentence.


Isn't it?


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## elroy

It doesn't sound natural to me, but regardless, there's nothing special about this case.  "Much" is a pronoun here, so this is just like "something new."


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## Bondstreet

.
I don't know if this adds anything, but have a look - I am a bit dizzy reading through all this... 

>> #1: _Jedes Jahr gibt es *etwas* *Neues*_

>> When neuter adjective nouns follow the undeclinable indefinite pronouns *etwas, nichts, viel, *and* wenig,* they must take the strong adjective endings, because these pronouns do not carry any case information...

>> Sie schenkt mir immer *etwas Teures* zum Geburtstag....

www.vistawide.com/german/grammar/german_nouns03.htm
(bottom of the page)
.


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## Gernot Back

Bondstreet said:


> I am a bit dizzy reading through all this


Does _dizzy _modify the _bit _or does the _bit _modfiy the _dizzy_ here?


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## bearded

Gernot Back said:


> Like _heir apparent, heir presumptive,_ _commander-in-chief_ etc., _Secretary General_ is a classical example of Romance word order of Romance loan words in English, for which Hans Marchand coined the term  _inversion compound_.


Is it a sure thing that this cannot happen with _God Almighty_? Although 'almighty' is a Germanic word, and not a loan word, there seems to be an analogy. After all, _God Almighty _is but a literal translation of the biblical _Deus Omnipotens, _so the influence on the construction might come directly from Latin - if not from the Latin-derived languages.


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## berndf

Moderator note: May I remind us all that the question was about German. I may be interesting and relevant to the topic to look a bit left and right. But this side discussion has now high jacked the threat.


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