Word order of adverbial phrases (TE–KA–MO–LO) and objects (dative – accusative)

Question

Is there any rule for organizing the adverbs and objects in a German sentence? I know the rule that says that the order of the adverbs should be: Time–causal–modal–place. What I do not know is if there is any rule for combining the position of the adverbs with that of the objects. Below I leave an example to see if that order would be grammatically correct.

Ich schenke meinem Bruder (DAT) morgen (TE) wegen seines Geburtstags (KA) mit großer Begeisterung (MO) das blaue Hemd (Ak) im Park(LO).

I would appreciate if you could also offer some other relevant examples.

Answer 1

Rule 6: There is no rule 6!

I’ll admit that it is slightly tongue-in-cheek but the underlying statement holds true. Apart from having the finite verb in second position in main clauses and any infinitives or separable particles in last position, there is no fixed rule as to which fragment of a sentence should be where. All that we have are varying degrees of strain from almost unstrained to very strained, the latter being associated with extreme emphasis or ‘being wrong’.

There are a few minor rules. The shorter a fragment is, the more likely it is to find an unstrained position at the beginning of a sentence (‘short before long’). If a fragment is known from former parts of the speech or easily inferred, it is also likely to be closer to the beginning (‘theme before rheme’). Thus, pronouns tend to be at an earlier position than the nouns they replace.

Examples:

Ich schlage nachher^{TE} mit dem Hammer^{MO} zur Beruhigung^{KA} den Boxsack^{Akk} in meinem Zimmer.^{LO}

In zwei Minuten^{TE} schlage ich ihn^{Akk} dazu^{KA} mit dem Hammer.^{MO}

Damit^{MO} schlage ich ihn^{Akk} nachher^{TE} in meinem Zimmer^{LO} zur Beruhigung.^{KA}

These are just three examples. I have five moveable fragments so I can theoretically give 5! = 120 versions of the sentence of which some are better and some are emphasised and some seem too strained. In theory, all 120 are valid but there will likely be a certain number of combinations that a German won’t use.

Check out this answer for a more extensive example with less moveable fragments (but all possible positionings).

Answer 2

Your sentence is grammatically correct. It is an invalid sentence though.

When exploring or analyzing a language the only source to take from is historical texts (which is a huge source by the way).

You can therefore read a dozen of books and look for the used phrase order. But constructing fantasy sentences that have never been said and that won't ever be said is the wrong way –– as you won't find practical solutions.

And your sentence is such a candidate.

As Em1 has pointed out the German sentence structure is a freakingly complex topic. The linguists who should deal with that are way to liberal arts oriented as there would be any practicable research.