# You offer something that expensive?



## vlaasek

*Moderator note*: Welcome to the forum, vlaasek!  Thread split off from here. One topic per thread, please (forum rule 2). Many thanks! 


I want to say: *You offer something that exppensive?!* 
Say, a lady is in the shop and sees an ice cream label which makes her stare in amazement as they offer it for 20€.
To assure herself she did not wake up on another planet, she asks the shop assistant disgustedly: *Sie anbieten etwas so teuer?!*
Is the form of *teuer* okay? Or do I have to conjugate it somehow? May it be considered a predicate adjective?


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## bearded

< ... > 
But I will try to reply all the same, to help you  (maybe moderators will admit this one exception):
I think the correct expression would be 
_Und Sie bieten etwas so Teures an?
_(please note the *separable* verb 'anbieten').


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## Glockenblume

_Sie bieten das (Eis) so teuer an?
Sie bieten das (Eis) für einen derartigen Preis an?
Sie bieten ein so teures Eis an?

_(etwas aggressiv: )  _Sie bieten das (Eis) für einen solch unverschämten Preis an?_

@ bearded man:
_Und Sie bieten etwas so Teures an?_
> Der Satz drückt wahrscheinlich nicht das Gemeinte aus:
Es würde heißen, dass 20€ zu teuer sind, nicht nur für das Eis, sondern überhaupt.


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## Schimmelreiter

Glockenblume said:


> Es würde heißen, dass 20€ zu teuer sind, nicht nur für das Eis, sondern überhaupt.


That's what vlaasek wants to say:





vlaasek said:


> I want to say: You offer something that expensive?!


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## Glockenblume

Schimmelreiter said:


> That's what vlaasek wants to say:



Hatte ich den englischen Satz dann falsch verstanden?


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## vlaasek

Thank you for your ideas, Glockenblume.
The suggestions are a bit difficult for me to be able to integrate them into my current knowledge.
But one question rises in my mind. How come there is a change in the ending of the adjective as 
seen below? 

_Und Sie bieten *etwas *so teur*es* an?_
_Sie bieten *das *(Eis) so teuer an?_

Aren't etwas and das both neuters? Please, if the answer should be 'more complex' somehow, 
do not bother with that. I am a beginner.


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## Demiurg

vlaasek said:


> How come there is a change in the ending of the adjective as seen below?
> 
> _Und Sie bieten *etwas *so teur*es* an?_
> _Sie bieten *das *(Eis) so teuer an?_
> 
> Aren't etwas and das both neuters?




In the first case "teures" is an (inflected) adjective, in the second case "teuer" is an (uninflected) adverb referring to "anbieten".


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## Schimmelreiter

_something that expensive - etwas so Teures _is what vlaasek asked about. _Teures _is a noun: _das Teure.

teuer _is an adverb. _etwas (so) teuer anbieten _is totally different in meaning: _to offer something at (such) a high price_


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## vlaasek

I see. It is easy to catch the meaning now. Thanks, Demiurg.

To Schimmelreiter:
I have a problem to find out the word *das Teure* in my dictionary.
But at least I can understand the capital T in bearded man's answer.
Thank you.

 Does etwas so Teures literally mean something of such expensiveness?


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## bearded

Das Teure is a neuter, substantivated adjective. It has practically become a noun, therefore the capital letter.
Etwas so Teures means something so expensive.
In German you say (for nothing expensive) nichts Teures , (for something expensive) etwas Teures....
That construction probably corresponds to grammar rules you have not yet learned, but please go ahead and do not surrender!


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## wandle

bearded man said:


> Etwas so Teures means something so expensive.


In English, 'something' is the substantive and 'expensive' the adjective. Likewise with 'nothing so expensive'.
The puzzle to me is how things can be the other way round in German. How can 'something' or 'nothing' fail to be substantives?


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## vlaasek

I am not giving up learning German as far as Mord mit Aussicht is on. 
Thank you for clarification and encouragement, bearded man.


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## Schimmelreiter

wandle said:


> In English, 'something' is the substantive and 'expensive' the adjective. Likewise with 'nothing so expensive'.
> The puzzle to me is how things can be the other way round in German. How can 'something' or 'nothing' fail to be substantives?


_etwas Mehl - *some *flour
etwas Teures - *some *expensive thing_​

It doesn't work with _nichts_, though. I'll have to dig deeper. 


PS
I've dug deeper:

_etwas _and _nichts _used to be used with the partitive genitive:

_etwas Mehls -"something of flour"
nichts Mehls - "nothing of flour"

etwas Mehls _became _etwas Mehl.
etwas des Teuren _became _etwas Teures.

nichts des Teuren _became _nichts Teures._
But _nichts Mehls _did not become _​*nichts Mehl._

Hope that makes some sense.


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## Gernot Back

wandle said:


> In English, 'something' is the substantive



Isn't _something_ a pronoun?
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/something
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/something?showCookiePolicy=true



wandle said:


> and 'expensive' the adjective.


... and if _something _is a pronoun, how could the _expensive _part in "something expensive" be an attributive adjective? I think it is the other way around: The appositional pronoun _something_ takes the role of the attribute of the *nominalized* adjective _expensive_.

compare in German:



_nichts Neues
_ 
_ etwas Wahres
_ 
_ wenig_ (attr.) _Gutes
_ 
_ viel_ (attr.) _Schönes_


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## wandle

Gernot Back said:


> Isn't _something_ a pronoun?


Yes; a noun equivalent: in other words, a substantive.


> ... and if _something _is a pronoun, how could the _expensive _part in "something expensive" be an attributive adjective?


How could it not be? The 'thing' is the object in question and 'expensive' is its attribute.


> compare in German:
> 
> _nichts Neues
> _
> _ etwas Wahres
> _


That is what is puzzling.


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## Gernot Back

wandle said:


> Yes; a noun equivalent: in other words, a substantive.


A pronoun is not quite equivalent to a noun, since it cannot be accompanied by an attributive adjective.
In German as in English, an attributive adjective *precedes* a noun.


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## wandle

Gernot Back said:


> A pronoun is not quite equivalent to a noun, since it cannot be accompanied by an attributive adjective.
> In German as in English, an attributive adjective *precedes* a noun.


This made me think I had made a mistake, whereupon I said to myself 'Silly me!' - which made me think I had not made a mistake.

According to the OED, however, 'something' is: 'noun (and adj.) and adv.'
According to Chambers English Dictionary (1990), it may be a noun or a pronoun. 
At any rate, we can say it is substantive in this case as it denotes the object - that is, the existing thing - in question.

Any adjective qualifying a substantive may be said to be attributive in the sense that it expresses an attribute.
As regards position, it is true that in 'You offer something that expensive?' the position of 'expensive' is predicative, not attributive; but that does not alter the fact that it is an adjective qualifying the substantive 'something'.

The phrase 'that expensive' means 'as expensive as that'. The fact that the word is being expressed in this comparative sense also goes to show that it is an adjective.


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## Gernot Back

wandle said:


> whereupon I said to myself 'Silly me!'



I would not to subscribe to this statement at all, but again this example shows that even if you don't draw a clear distinction between pronouns and nouns, the attributive adjective (here: _silly_)  precedes the (pro)noun (here: _me_).


wandle said:


> Any adjective qualifying a substantive may be said to be attributive in the sense that it expresses an attribute.
> As regards position, it is true that in 'You offer something that expensive?' the position of 'expensive' is predicative, not attributive; but that does not alter the fact that it is an adjective qualifying the substantive 'something'.



I would see it the other way around: In this case it is not the adjective _expensive_ qualifying the pronoun _something_. As I already said in post #14 I would consider the pronoun _something _to be the qualifier of nominalized adjective _expensive:

__Something of that which is expensive_​
... and the relation between the qualifier '_something_' and the qualified thing '_the expensive_' is an appositional one.

The pronoun_ something _would thus be the appositive attribute of the nominalized adjective _expensive.

_Even if it were vice versa with _expensive_ as the appositive (not predicative!) of the pronoun, as an appositive it would most likely be a noun.


			
				en.wikipedia.org said:
			
		

> *Apposition* is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to identify the other in a different way.


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apposition


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## Schimmelreiter

Yes, _something expensive _means _something of the expensive _(pronoun + nominalised adjective in the partitive genitive) just like _etwas/nichts_ originally used to be used with the partitive genitive in German (see #13).

_expensive_ is neither predicative nor a postponed attribute (of which instances are rare in English: _notary public, secretary general_ etc., all of them Romance, unlike the _something/nothing _construction).


Back to _something that expensive = something so expensive_: _"something of the so expensive"_


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## Gernot Back

Schimmelreiter said:


> _expensive_ is neither predicative nor a postponed attribute


The genitive attribute _ des Teuren_ in German would still be an attribute *following* the pronoun _etwas _to which it refers. Likewise, the prepositional attribute _(of the) expensive_ would be positioned after its referent _something_. I prefer synchronic analyses, though.


Schimmelreiter said:


> (of which instances are rare in English: _notary public, secretary general_ etc., all of them Romance, unlike the _something/nothing _construction).


Phrases like _heir presumptive_, _commander in chief_ etc. are *inversion compounds* according to Marchand, with the determinant (DT) following the determinatum (DM) [Romance model of compounding] instead of the DT preceding the DM (Germanic model of compound word formation)


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## Schimmelreiter

Gernot Back said:


> The genitive attribute _ des Teuren_ in German would still be an attribute *following* the pronoun _etwas _to which it refers. Likewise, the prepositional attribute _(of the) expensive_ would be positioned after its referent _something_.


My bad. I should have written _postponed attributive adjective. 


_On the other hand, doesn't my immediately following relative clause 

_of which instances are rare in English: notary public, secretary general _etc_._

make it clear I meant _postponed attributive adjective_?


This doesn't alter the fact, though, that you are right.


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## wandle

The difference between an attributive adjective and a predicative adjective is indeed one of position, but it is only relevant to the present case if the word 'expensive' is an adjective functioning as an adjective.

Apposition means that two elements of the same function are juxtaposed without any grammatical connection: e.g. 'Champion, the Wonder Horse' or 'Edward I, Hammer of the Scots'. In each case, one naming expression just sits beside the other, linked only by position and punctuation, and performing the same role in the sentence.

If _etwas Teures_ means 'something of the expensive' then _Teures_ is a nominalised adjective in the genitive case. On that basis it is equivalent to a noun, which explains why it is capitalised. The genitive case shows that this is not apposition, but a regular connection of two equivalent elements (substantives).

However, in that case, _etwas_, whether we call it pronoun or noun, is equally a substantive and I am still puzzled as to why it has no capital, if the German rule is to capitalise a term which acts as a noun.


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## bearded

I think that indefinite pronouns are never capitalized in German (jemand, niemand, etwas, nichts...).  Only substantivated adjectives (das Gute...) take the capital letter.  There are cases though, when those pronouns are capitalized, but then they are clearly nouns (ein Nichts,  mein Alles...).'


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## Schimmelreiter

wandle said:


> the German rule is to capitalise a term which acts as a noun.


We don't have that rule. Pronouns acting as nouns aren't capitalised unless they *are* (turned into) nouns: _das Etwas, das Nichts.



_Cross-posted, sorry. bearded man said it in other words.



PS 
I've seen indefinite pronouns capitalised in older texts _(Jemand, Alles etc.)_, must have gone out of fashion at some point.


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## wandle

bearded man said:


> Only substantivated adjectives (das Gute...) take the capital letter.


Is this also saying that it is only with the definite article that an adjective is capitalised?


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## wandle

Schimmelreiter said:


> wandle said:
> 
> 
> 
> the German rule is to capitalise a term which acts as a noun.
> 
> 
> 
> We don't have that rule.
Click to expand...

 I did say 'if'!


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## Gernot Back

wandle said:


> Is this also saying that it is only with the definite article that an adjective is capitalised?


No:
_Wir sind in diesem Thread zwar jetzt vo*m* (def. article) *H*undertsten in*s* (def. article) *T*ausendste gekommen, aber *ein* (indef. article) Gutes hat es: *Ø* (zero article) *U*ninteresssantes war nicht dabei!_​


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## wandle

Of course! I should have appreciated that. 

Thus: (1) _etwas_ is considered to be an indefinite pronoun (whereas 'something' in this case is apparently best seen as a noun);
(2) _etwas_, because it is an indefinite pronoun, is not capitalised;
(3) the phrase _so Teures_ is genitive and means 'of the so expensive'.


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## Glockenblume

wandle said:


> Of course! I should have appreciated that.
> 
> Thus: (1) _etwas_ is considered to be an indefinite pronoun acting as a noun (whereas 'something' in this case is considered to be a noun);
> (2) even though acting as a noun, _etwas_, because it is an indefinite pronoun, is not capitalised;
> (3) the phrase _so Teures_ is genitive and means 'of the so expensive'.



> (1) Perhaps it's easier to accept if you make the parallele between indefinite pronouns and other pronouns and articles which have the same function:
_Ich sehe *es*. - Ich sehe *dies*. - Ich sehe *das*. - Ich sehe *etwas*._ 
None of them are capitalized.
_Ich sehe *dieses *teure Auto. - Ich sehe *das *teure Auto. - Ich sehe *etwas *Teures._
The nouns are capitalized.

> (3) "is genitive"??? I would prefer to say: ... was perhaps a genitive in the beginning
_so Teur*es*_: the *-es *is the Neuter ending of nominative and accusative >_ An so Teur*em* habe ich kein Interesse._ (dative)


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## bearded

wandle said:


> Is this also saying that it is only with the definite article that an adjective is capitalised?


By no means: see 'alles Gute', 'nichts Gutes', etc.


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## wandle

Glockenblume said:


> > (3) "is genitive"??? I would prefer to say: ... was perhaps a genitive in the beginning
> _so Teur*es*_: the *-es *is the Neuter ending of nominative and accusative


If it is accusative, then the two terms _etwas_ and _so Teures_ can indeed only be in apposition: which seems odd, to me at least, in the absence of commas. 

It is also odd, to English ears, to find _so_ with a noun. To us, the word thus qualified can only be an adjective. 
In English, the use of a non-adjectival comparative qualifying expression rules out the idea of a noun: however, this is evidently not the case in German.


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## wandle

wandle said:


> in apposition: which seems odd, to me at least, in the absence of commas.


After all, why should it? We have 'Edward the Confessor' and 'Conan The Barbarian'.


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## niku

I gather that the issue was not settled, so I offer a new point. 

 Suppose a father says to his son: 
_I will not buy something so expensive_ [for you].
That is the same as:
_I will not buy a thing so expensive._ And that is the same as: 
_I will not buy a thing [which is] so expensive [a thing]._ 

 To quote from one of my favourite books† “of course, the noun is here dropped to prevent tautology”. And further, “But in our Bible translation many such tautological phrases may be found, which is a proof that about the time the said translation was made, tautology was not thought so great a blemish as it is now.... The following are a few scriptural tautological expressions that appear to me:— He will _rejoice_ over thee with _joy_; he _cried_ with a bitter _cry_; with _sorrow_ he had _afflicted_ me; _strengthened_ with _might_ in the inner man; _filled_ with all the _fullness_ of God; the _comfort_ werewith we are _comforted_; I will command the clouds that they _rain_ no _rain_ upon it.” (And in _Lord of the Rings_, what Aragorn said about Frodo and Sam: “praise them with great praise”.) 

† Rev. Charles J. Lyon, _An Analysis of the Seven Parts of Speech of the English Language_ (1832), pp. 96-97. Available gratis at the Internet Archive/Google Books. (The forum refused to accept the URL.)


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## bearded

@ niku
Although I don't well understand why the issue of tautology should have something to do with the problems we are discussing, I would like to remark that the fact that in a Bible translation many tautologies can be found, is mainly due to the circumstance that in semitic languages tautologies are a very common feature (e.g. in Arabic they often say ''a strong rain is raining'' and similar, and I am sure the same is valid also for Hebrew), so the result is just a literal translation from the original, but by no means does it tell us that ''tautology was not thought to be so great a blemish at the time of the translation''. That is my opinion at least.
If you say that _I will not buy something so expensive_ corresponds to _I will not buy a thing which is so expensive a thing, _how does that help us in determining how we should translate the indefinite pronoun, or whether the initial letter should be capitalized in German...?  Can you please explain your point of view more clearly?


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## Schimmelreiter

niku said:


> _I will not buy something so expensive_ [for you].
> That is the same as:
> _I will not buy a thing so expensive._ And that is the same as:
> _I will not buy a thing [which is] so expensive [a thing]._





bearded man said:


> If you say that _I will not buy something so expensive_ corresponds to _I will not buy a thing which is so expensive a thing, _how does that help us in determining how we should translate the indefinite pronoun, or whether the initial letter should be capitalized in German...?


Exactly my question, too.





Schimmelreiter said:


> That's what vlaasek wants to say:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> vlaasek said:
> 
> 
> 
> I want to say: You offer something that expensive?!
Click to expand...




Schimmelreiter said:


> _something that expensive - etwas so Teures _is what vlaasek asked about. _Teures _is a noun: _das Teure._


niku,
You're effectively explaining _something_ by saying it means _some [_i.e. _a]_ _thing_, ridding _something_ of its pronominality. So?  Are you telling vlaasek to say _eine so teure Sache_:





niku said:


> _a thing so expensive_


or _eine Sache, die so teuer ist_, or even _eine Sache, die eine so teure Sache ist_:





niku said:


> _a thing [which is] so expensive [a thing]_


since you're going to some length to defend tautology?

See what hot water you're potentially getting him into by equating a pronoun with a noun?


PS
Picture where it would get us if we explained _somebody_ by _some body _.
I suggest we strictly keep pronouns and nouns apart.


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## niku

Actually, I was speaking from the point of view Rev. Lyon promotes (following Tooke’s _Diversions of Purley_): that except for rare exceptions, words belong to only one part of speech.

Why is it so _expensive_? = Why is it (=the thing being referred to; pronoun) so expensive [thing].
Expensive: adjective, used here as a substantive. (so would be capitalized if this were in German.)

Can you show me _something_ less _expensive_? = Can you show me _some_ (= a/one) _thing_ [which is] less expensive [thing].
_Expensive_: the same as above. _Something_: Since some-thing will fall in none of the other categories, I would classify it as an adverb. (This is how Tooke classifies _something_ too, by the way.) Similarly, _nothing_. If a word-for-word translation of the phrase from E. to G. is permissible here, then I think _something_ (_etwas_) would be classified as an adverb in G. too.

And hence my original example:
I will not buy something so expensive. = I will not buy some-thing [which is] so expensive [thing].



Schimmelreiter said:


> Picture where it would get us if we explained _somebody_ by _some body _.


Why not?

_I see somebody. = I see some body/person._
‘Body’ has probably now lost an independent existence in the sense in which it occurs in somebody, nobody, anybody and everybody, i.e., meaning "man" or "person". "Happens all the time", you know!

_Someone please help me. = Some one/person please help me._
‘One’ as used in ‘One may say ...’.

If it is a pronoun, what noun does it represents?

---
As for what the final translated phrase would be according to me: Sorry, I have just started to learn G., so I am in no position to offer something with confidence! Also, check my reply to Schimmelreiter below!

---
More general points:



bearded man said:


> ... but by no means does it tell us that ''tautology was not thought to be so great a blemish at the time of the translation''


I agree that other, original, texts of the time have to be consulted to make that statement. The author probably did check, though!



Schimmelreiter said:


> ... Are you telling vlaasek to say _eine so teure Sache_r _eine Sache, die so teuer ist_, or even _eine Sache, die eine so teure Sache ist_:since you're going to some length to defend tautology?



No. I am talking about what the English phrase stands for. Of course we cannot rely on a word-for-word translation (even after taking into account the grammatical issues)! If someone asks for the meaning of ‘How are you?’, and I tell him, "Are you comfortable with how things-in-general, for you, are / are developing" (ignoring for the moment that the phrase is often used simply as a greeting), it does not mean that I am asking him to translate the above monstrosity into German! That is the meaning, the equivalent German phrase has to hunted up next -- going by the meaning given! (And in which hunting we would first off all go through the list of idioms!)



Schimmelreiter said:


> PS: I've dug deeper.


May I know where you "dug"? Also, have you come across the website mentioned below?
http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/s...tml&corpus=core&ctx=&q="etwas+teuer"&limit=10
http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/s...html&corpus=ready&ctx=&q="so+Teures"&limit=10
And check, specially: 
http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/doku/DDC-suche_hilfe


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## Schimmelreiter

niku said:


> Schimmelreiter said:
> 
> 
> 
> PS
> I've dug deeper.
> 
> 
> 
> May I know where you "dug"?
Click to expand...

That referred to _etwas _and _nichts_ having originally been used with the partitive genitive:





Schimmelreiter said:


> PS
> I've dug deeper:
> 
> _etwas _and _nichts _used to be used with the partitive genitive:
> 
> _etwas Mehls -"something of flour"
> nichts Mehls - "nothing of flour"
> 
> etwas Mehls _became _etwas Mehl.
> etwas des Teuren _became _etwas Teures.
> 
> nichts des Teuren _became _nichts Teures._
> But _nichts Mehls _did not become _​*nichts Mehl._


I'd dug at my usual digging site:
etwas
nichts










niku said:


> Since some-thing will fall in none of the other categories, I would classify it as an adverb. (This is how Tooke classifies _something_ too, by the way.) Similarly, _nothing_. If a word-for-word translation of the phrase from E. to G. is permissible here, then I think _something_ (_etwas_) would be classified as an adverb in G. too.


That doesn't help the translation.

I fear I have to uphold my reference to the partitive genitive:

_something (of the) so expensive - etwas des so Teuren > etwas so Teures_

This makes _expensive/Teures_ a noun of course. Or a substantive (to those grammarians that use _noun_ as a concept superordinate to, for instance, substantives and pronouns).


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## niku

Schimmelreiter said:


> That referred to _etwas _and _nichts_ having originally been used with the partitive genitive:I'd dug at my usual digging site:etwasnichts


Thanks. Another useful page is http://www.koeblergerhard.de/wikiling/?f=home .





Schimmelreiter said:


> I fear I have to uphold my reference to the partitive genitive: _something (of the) so expensive - etwas des so Teuren > etwas so Teures_ This makes _expensive/Teures_ a noun of course. Or a substantive (to those grammarians that use _noun_ as a concept superordinate to, for instance, substantives and pronouns).


Since I do not know German, I will accept whatever you say. I would like to note though that in practice, what you and I are saying would result in the same thing. Also, I too accept that expensive/Teures is a substantive. The only difference in our positions is that you are saying that if we were to analyse the sentence, for you ‘expensive’ will stand alone, and as a noun, while for me ‘expensive’ is really an adjective there (and everywhere else), though used substantively here (with the noun understood without being mentioned). 





niku said:


> Since some-thing will fall in none of the other categories, I would classify it as an adverb. (This is how Tooke classifies _something_ too, by the way.)


I meant Rev. Lyon, not Tooke.


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## Schimmelreiter

I'd say when an adjective is used substantively, it _is _a substantive: _The faithful are assembled in the church. _What unmentioned substantive would be understood to be modified here? On the contrary, the substantive _faithful _may be modified by an adjective: _​the happy faithful_


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## niku

Schimmelreiter said:


> I'd say when an adjective is used substantively, it _is _a substantive: _The faithful are assembled in the church. _What unmentioned substantive would be understood to be modified here? On the contrary, the substantive _faithful _may be modified by an adjective: _​the happy faithful_


The faithful people are assembled in the church.
The happy faithful people are assembled in the church.

I think the example makes my point, as faithful here does not stand alone! For we could as well also say, 

The faithful men are assembled in the church.
The faithful women are assembled in the church.
The faithful children are assembled in the church.
Or even,
The happy faithful ducklings are assembled in the church.

To find out which of the above possibilities is correct, we would have to check the context -- to identify the missing noun!


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## niku

I found some usages of the phrase using the excellent _Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache_. (See link below. Please check it; this must be the best German dictionary page online!)


> Da aber gerade, als ich *etwas so Teures* wie die Heimat wiedergefunden hatte, da streifte mich abermals das Verhängnis und drohte, mir das einzige, was ich nach allem Umherirren gewonnen hatte, auf besonders schmähliche Art und Weise zu entreißen .
> Schaper, Edzard, Der Henker, Leipzig: Insel-Verl. 1940, S. 614. (Neudruck: Schaper, Edzard, Der Henker, Zürich: Artemis 1978.)





> Und auch jene nicht, denen Calixto Bieitos Mutter regelmäßig Essen aus dem Supermarkt holt. "Mit *etwas so Teurem* wie einem Opernhaus", sagt die Managerin Maria Goded pragmatisch, "kann man keine Revolution machen." Aber dort, gerade dort, wo Töne und Themen das Gemeinsame berühren, könnte eine Diskussion beginnen.
> Die Zeit, 15.02.2014, Nr. 07




Links: http://www.dwds.de
http://www.dwds.de/?view=1&qu=etwas+so+teures

I offer it to others for discussion!

---
Trivia:


niku said:


> I meant Rev. Lyon, not Tooke.


Bare ‘Tooke’ does not look good when I have put ‘Rev.’ before Lyon. So read ‘Tooke’ as ‘Mr. Tooke’. But, if I am willing to go "full retard", I may as well put ‘Late’ before the names!


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## Schimmelreiter

niku,
The translation has been clear since post #2. We've been exploring whether there's any common ground between German and English as far as the grammatical analysis of _etwas so Teures _and _something so expensive _is concerned. There doesn't seem to be any since the notion of _expensive _being nominalised is alien to English.


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## niku

Schimmelreiter said:


> niku,The translation has been clear since post #2. We've been exploring whether there's any common ground between German and English as far as the grammatical analysis of _etwas so Teures _and _something so expensive _is concerned. There doesn't seem to be any since the notion of _expensive _being nominalised is alien to English.


Schimmelreiter, I disagree with your assessment above.
< ... >


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