In the sentence "She is a missonary" missionary would be the direct object and thus in accusative case right? I need to know for a german assignment, so any help would be appreciated.
2006-12-11 19:10:26 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
You use the nominative case on both sides of 'is' (am, are, was, were, been...).
In general: nominative--person/thing doing the action (verbing)
accusative: who or what got verbed
dative: who/what got the goodies/baddies
ex. The boy hit the girl.
boy--he did the action--nominative--der Junge
the girl--got hit--accusative- das Mädchen
the girl hit the boy
girl--she did the hitting--nominative--das Mädchen
the boy--got hit--accusative--den Jungen
Mom gave them both a punishment.
Mom--did the giving--nominative
them--got the baddies--dative
a punishment---got given
This is the middle school version, but it holds up pretty well...
(30+ years teaching middle school world languages)
2006-12-12 09:28:59 · answer #1 · answered by frauholzer 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope, missionary is nominative because she's only stating what she is, not doing anything to herself. In the sentence "Sie ist Missionarin," Sie is the subject and Missionarin is the complement, or the same thing as the subject.
A direct object receives an action from the subject. In the sentence "Sie ermordete den Missionar/die Missionarin," Sie is still the subject but Missionar/in is the direct object.
2006-12-12 03:22:53 · answer #2 · answered by hznfrst 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
After linking verbs (all forms of the verb to be - am, is, are, was, were) you will always have a nominative case. You say this is she, not this is her. You hear people say it incorrectly every day, so it feels right to say "it's me", or "that's him", but it is not grammatically correct.
2006-12-12 05:32:49 · answer #3 · answered by Jeannie 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋