Franconian Beer Message Board

Compound Nouns
Posted by Nick B. on 2011-03-01 01:54:53
One of the many lovely features of the German language is the readiness with which compound nouns are plastered together. "Kreuzberg" is the combination of the nouns "cross" and "hill(mountain)", though it is actually used as a place name, and not as a noun, so it won't likely appear in a dictionary. There are a couple of rules that learners of the language have to wrap their brains around though. The bad news first. Various letters must sometimes be used to weld the nouns together. And I've learned that there is no real rule about when a given letter must be used and when not: it's all dependent on the composition in question. Kreuzberg, is a merciful example of when no extra letter is required. Schweinshaxe illustrates the use of 's' to join Schwein and Haxe. But then, many Germans (or Franconians?) seem to struggle with this, as I often see "SchweinEhaxe" on menus, so we non-native speakers shouldn't feel too bad, I guess. (But then "ground pork" is "SchweinEhackfleisch", so I guess I see whence the confusion arises.) My favourite self-composed compound German noun is one I made a few years ago while we were finishing the details of our then-new house: rooftop-terrace-garden-water-faucet. I asked my friend and German teacher if "Dachterrassegartenwasseranschluss" sounded like an okay word, to which he replied, "Sounds like you're missing an 'n' in there, DachterrasseNgartenwasseranschluss' would be correct". Win a few, lose a few. Loathe as I may be to see the W-word mentioned here, I feel compelled to avail myself of its usefulness when compounded with 'festival' to illustrate a second, easy rule to learn. "Weinfest" is a combination of the masculine "der Wein" and the neutral "das Fest". A compound noun always takes the gender of the last noun used, so "Weinfest" is neutral--"das Weinfest". This is in contrast to when two nouns are used together but not combined, such as the case with a cup of tea. (The "of" is generally not used in such cases in German, so one says "I'd like a cup tea".) The gender of the quantifying noun, the cup, supersedes the gender of the object noun, the tea. So you say "die/eine Tasse Tee", where 'die/eine' reflects the femininity of the cup (Tasse), and the masculinity of the tea is beaten into submission. Meh.
 
Followups:
       Compound Nouns by Barry on  2011-03-01 02:34:53
         Compound Nouns by Nick B. on  2011-03-01 03:01:58
           Compound Nouns by Jürgen Wening on  2011-03-01 03:47:35
       Compound Nouns by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-01 05:53:58
         Compound Nouns by Nick B. on  2011-03-01 23:33:03
           Genitive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-02 04:48:57
             Genitive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-02 05:08:30
               Genitive Case by Nick B. on  2011-03-02 05:59:11
                 Genitive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-02 08:06:32
                   Possessive Case by Nick B. on  2011-03-02 14:34:07
                     Possessive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-02 20:51:54
                       Possessive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-02 20:59:29
                         Possessive Case by Nick B. on  2011-03-03 00:53:19
                       Possessive Case by Gunnar H on  2011-03-03 02:10:18
                         Possessive Case by Uncle Jimbo on  2011-03-03 04:41:30