"Ich habe grünen Saft."
Translation:I have green juice.
49 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1235
Why is this 'grunen' and not 'gruner'? Is 'I have'... something an Accustative sentence. Thanks in advance
I believe it's 'grunen' because of strong inflection (there is no definite or indefinite article in the sentence to indicate the gender of Saft like 'der' or 'ein') and since Saft is masculine and accusative, the ending is -en.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declension#Strong_inflection.5B6.5D.5B7.5D
163
That's not the reason though.. It is indeed a strong infliction but the weak and mixed ones also end in -en for Mask. Akk. For Mask. it would be -er in Nom. only and only in mixed or strong inflictions (weak would be -e).
I thought if there are no articles (Ohne Artikel) then we always use -e prefix for adjectives.
That is not correct.
The case where there is no article is the one where the adjective has the largest number of distinct endings! It's most certainly not "always -e".
Have a look at the description of strong inflection at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives#Weak,_mixed,_and_strong_inflection .
Basically, the ending of the adjective will usually be the same as the last letter of the definite article in that combination of gender/number/case.
So for Saft (masculine) and direct object (accusative), you will have grünen Saft with the masculine accusative -n as in den.
Why isit grünen and not grün
It can't be grün, because the adjective is before a noun, and attributive adjectives (those before a noun) always have to take an ending of some kind, with very few exceptions.
Which ending it takes depends on the gender, number, and case of the following noun and on whether there is an article or other determiner before the adjective.
- Saft is masculine
- It's the direct object of the verb trinken, so it's in the accusative case
- There is no article before the adjective, so the adjective takes strong inflection
- Thus the ending is -en, to show masculine accusative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives#Weak,_mixed,_and_strong_inflection