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German sentence structure is the structure to which the German language adheres. German is an OV (Object-Verb) language. [1] Additionally, German, like all west Germanic languages except English, [note 1] uses V2 word order, though only in independent clauses. In dependent clauses, the finite verb is placed last.
(The verb sew was always weak, even though one can say sewn for the past participle.) The verb show, originally a weak verb, has acquired a strong past participle shown, and in some dialects even a class 7 strong past tense shew (This "shew" is not to be confused with present "shew", which is an older spelling of, and pronounced the same as ...
The past participles of modal and auxiliary verbs have the same form as their infinitives. But if these verbs are used alone, without an infinitive, they have a regular participle. Ich habe den Chef besuchen dürfen (Chef = boss) (I was allowed to see the boss) Ich habe zum Chef gedurft (unusual) (I was allowed in to the boss)
The Germanic verb system carried two innovations over the previous Proto-Indo-European verb system: . Simplification to two tenses: present (also conveying future meaning) and past (sometimes called "preterite" and conveying the meaning of all of the following English forms: "I did, I have done, I had done, I was doing, I have been doing, I had been doing").
For the latter case, many German adjectives form a special adverb form ending in -erweise, e.g. glücklicherweise "luckily", traurigerweise "sadly" (from Weise = way, manner). In the following two example sentences, the adverb lustig "funnily" qualifies the verb, while lustigerweise "funnily" qualifies the whole sentence: Er hat lustig gesungen.
The past participle in Middle High German is formed by prefixing "ge-" to the verb stem, in addition to a dental suffix ("-d-" or "-(e)t-") for weak verbs, or by prefixing "ge-" to the infinitive of a strong verb, with a possible vowel change in the stem. The past participle of "sëhen" is "gesëhen"; the past participle of "dienen" is "gedienet".
German verbs are conjugated depending on their use: as in English, they are modified depending on the persons (identity) and number of the subject of a sentence, as well as depending on the tense and mood. The citation form of German verbs is the infinitive form, which generally consists of the bare form of the verb with -(e)n added to the end ...
Sometimes periphrastic forms were used for verbs that would otherwise be unpronounceable. [5] For example, the verb δείκνυμι deiknumi 'to show', has a hypothetical form * δεδείκνται dedeikntai , which has the disallowed consonant cluster -knt- , so one would instead say δεδειγμένοι εἰσί dedeigmenoi eisi , using ...