# beide



## screamerer

Hllo, guten Tag, ..

In the following sentence:

_*Meine Eltern konnten da beide in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.*_

_beide_ is an adverb, right?


Danke schön.


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## Jason_2_toi

No. An adverb modifies a verb.


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## JClaudeK

Jason_2_toi said:


> No. An adverb modifies a verb.


Nicht nur!
Im Deutschen kann alles Mögliche ein Adverb sein:


> Adverbien, auch Umstandswörter genannt, sind unveränderlich, das heißt, dass man sie nicht deklinieren kann. Adverbien bezeichnen die Umstände eines einzelnen Wortes oder eines ganzen Satzes näher. Ein Umstand kann sich beziehen auf:
> 
> Örtliche Umstände. Sie geben Auskunft über einen Ort.
> Zeitliche Umstände
> Modale Umstände. Sie geben Auskunft über die Art und Weise.
> Ein Adverb kann auch als Attribut verwendet werden:
> http://www.mein-deutschbuch.de/lernen.php?menu_id=12


Aber "beide" ist kein Adverb, sondern ein *Indefinitpronomen* (das ist hier m.E. der Fall) oder ein Zahlwort.
*
*


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## screamerer

Jason_2_toi said:


> No. An adverb modifies a verb.


Ok, so it modifies *konnten* then - where's the problem?


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## Jason_2_toi

Sorry I don't wanna go down this rabbit hole.


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## screamerer

Jason_2_toi said:


> Sorry I don't wanna go down this rabbit hole.


Then you shouldn't have come near it.


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## Perseas

Just to add this:



screamerer said:


> Ok, so it modifies *konnten* then


"beide" modifies the subject of the verb "Eltern", not the verb.
In the sentence "Sie laufen schnell", "schnell" is adverb and modifies the verb "laufen".


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## JClaudeK

Perseas said:


> "beide" modifies the subject of the verb "Eltern",
> not the verb.


I wouldn't say "modifies" but "*completes* *the subject* of the verb "Eltern".


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## exgerman

The same construction occurs in English, but is less common:

_My parents were both of them able to work for a transnational company there. _
(Or: for transnational companies, if they were at different ones. The German is ambiguous in this respect.)


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## perpend

exgerman said:


> The same construction occurs in English, but is less common:
> 
> _My parents were both of them able to work for a transnational company there. _
> (Or: for transnational companies, if they were at different ones. The German is ambiguous in this respect.)



I was thinking that too, exgerman. You can actually shorten it.
My parents were both able to work there for a transnational company.

God help me decide what part of speech "beide" or "both" is in these cases. I'd interject a vote that "beide" and "both" are maybe in an adjectival capacity.


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## Gernot Back

JClaudeK said:


> Aber "beide" ist kein Adverb, sondern ein *Indefinitpronomen* (das ist hier m.E. der Fall) oder ein Zahlwort.


I would say the indefinite pronoun (formal analysis) _beide_ is used as an *adverbial *(functional analysis) here. You could replace _beide _by _zusammen _here.

_Meine Eltern konnten da *zusammen* in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten._​And yes, indeed, _zusammen _would be an adverb here.


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## Demiurg

Gernot Back said:


> I would say the indefinite pronoun (formal analysis) _beide_ is used as an *adverbial *(functional analysis) here. You could replace _beide _by _zusammen _here.
> 
> _Meine Eltern konnten da *zusammen* in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten._​And yes, indeed, _zusammen _would be an adverb here.



What about:

_Meine Eltern können beide nicht schwimmen._
or similar:
_Meine Freunde können alle nicht schwimmen._

You couldn't replace "beide" with "zusammen" in this case.

_Meine Eltern sind sehr wasserscheu. Beide können nicht schwimmen_.

It's definitely an indefinite pronoun to me.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> I would say the indefinite pronoun (formal analysis) _beide_ is used as an *adverbial *(functional analysis) here. You could replace _beide _by _zusammen _here.
> 
> _Meine Eltern konnten da *zusammen* in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten._
> And yes, indeed, _zusammen _would be an adverb here.


Your example isn't completely accurate: The two sentences are not interchangeable as the version with _zusammen _requires both to work for the same company while in the version with _beide _they could also work for different international companies (unless the _da_ refers to a specific company which we don't know).

But your analysis seems valid to me and solves our problem nicely. The sentence in the OP contrasts with a semantically equivalent formulation _Beide meiner Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten. _where _beide _is both formally and functionally a pronoun.



Demiurg said:


> What about:
> ...
> _Meine Freunde können alle nicht schwimmen._
> 
> You couldn't replace "beide" with "zusammen" in this case.


You could replace _alle_ by _sämtlich_.


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## screamerer

Vielen Dank.


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## Gernot Back

berndf said:


> The sentence in the OP contrasts with a semantically equivalent formulation _Beide meiner Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten. _where _beide _is both formally and functionally a pronoun.



There is yet another version


> Beide *meine *Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.


..., where the formal pronoun _beide_ works as an appositional attribute functionally.


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## screamerer

Hallo, ..

Can you please tell me what the difference is between the two versions?

Beide *meiner *Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.
Beide *meine *Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.


Vielen Dank.


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## Frieder

This construction (_beide meiner(r)_) doesn't work well in German. I'd call your first example (genitive) incorrect, while the second one (nominative) looks better, but it isn't idiomatic. Try this one:

Meine Eltern konnten da beide in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.


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## berndf

Frieder said:


> I'd call your first example (genitive) incorrect, while the second one (nominative) looks better, but it isn't idiomatic.


Why? I find both correct and idiomatic. There are respectable attestations for both.

_Beide meiner Eltern _is stretching the concept of a paritive genitive a bit because there are by definition only two but I consider it still acceptable and meaningful.


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## screamerer

Hallo..
Sorry for revisiting this when it's been a while..

I understand from the above comments that *beide* as it stands in that sentence is functionally an adverb, but I'd like to further ask how it would otherwise register had it been surrounded by two commas:
_*Meine Eltern konnten da, beide, in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.*_


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## Gernot Back

screamerer said:


> I understand from the above comments that *beide* as it stands in that sentence is functionally an adverb


No, in this sentence, as I already said, _beide_ is an appositional attribute referring to _Eltern_, not an adverb.


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## Perseas

Gernot Back said:


> No, in this sentence, as I already said, _beide_ is an appositional attribute referring to _Eltern_, not an adverb.


Sorry, in #11 you have said that "beide" is used as an adverbial.



Gernot Back said:


> I would say the indefinite pronoun (formal analysis) _beide_ is used as an *adverbial *(functional analysis) here. You could replace _beide _by _zusammen _here. ...


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## screamerer

Gernot Back said:


> No, in this sentence, as I already said, _beide_ is an appositional attribute referring to _Eltern_, not an adverb.


Hi.. in your post above you said it was "used as an *adverbial*".. . However, and speaking of _apposition_, isn't it required that the two noun phrases be adjacent to one another?

*Beide meine Eltern konnten da in einer internationalen Firma arbeiten.*


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## Gernot Back

screamerer said:


> Hi.. in your post above you said it was "used as an *adverbial*"





			
				Konrad Adenauer said:
			
		

> Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?!


 ZITATE-ONLINE.DE +++ Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern. ...  (Zitate: Sprüche / Politiker)
An adverb has no inflectional ending, whereas an apposition has to agree with its referent in number and case. The latter is the case in the given sentence.


screamerer said:


> However, and speaking of _apposition_, isn't it required that the two noun phrases be adjacent to one another?


It is not unusual in German to have split NPs (with an attribute and the noun it refers to split in two different phrases).
Cf.: ftp://babel.ling.upenn.edu/studentpapers/kimiko/2004.ST.nakanishi.pdf


			
				http://www.deutschegrammatik20.de/attribute/die-apposition/ said:
			
		

> Appositionen mit _als_ können auch vom Bezugswort getrennt werden.


 Die Apposition


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## bearded

@Gernot -
War Dein 'Geschwätz von gestern' denn völlig gegenstandslos/null und nichtig? Meintest Du, eine Apposition könne auch als Adverb 'funktionieren'?


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## Gernot Back

bearded said:


> @Gernot -
> War Dein 'Geschwätz von gestern' denn völlig gegenstandslos/null und nichtig? Meintest Du, eine Apposition könne auch als Adverb 'funktionieren'?


Ja, je länger ich darüber nachdenke: _Beide _bzw. _beides _*kann *kein Adverb sein, denn ohne kongruente Endung funktioniert das ja nicht mit _beid*e*_.  Denkbar wäre ja auch noch eine neutrale Singular-Endung _beid*es*_, aber mit der funktioniert es nicht, denn die wäre für das Sem "[-belebt]" reserviert, wie etwa bei:

_Ich habe beid*es* gemocht; Physik und Mathematik._
Nicht: *_Ich habe beid*e* gemocht; Physik und Mathematik.

Als Studienfach habe ich mit beid*em* geliebäugelt; mit Physik und Mathematik._
Nicht: *_Als Studienfach/Studienfächern habe ich mit beid*en* geliebäugelt; mit Physik und Mathematik._​


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