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I have an assignment for German class to write a letter, expressing some kind of problem. I won't go deep into the subject, I just need help with some demonstrative pronouns, the first sentence being:

... es war ein anderer Koffer! Er war auch rot, aber das ist nicht genug, um meinen zu werden.

This thing, I know werden has 2 nominatives, but usually in an um...zu clause there's no subject, so I have no idea with this one, my gut, if any :D, tells me it should be meinen.

The other sentence I want to include (again regarding a Koffer) is:

Und keiner war doch meiner!

I'm pretty sure about the keiner, but not so much about meiner. We've done some exercises about demonstrative pronouns, but they were neither that many, nor were they that challenging. Anyway, thanks for the help in advance :)

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  • If the problem is that you want a subject in the subordinate clausule, I think you can use damit instead of an um ...zu clause.
    – c.p.
    Commented Jan 11, 2014 at 10:14
  • Ok, but how would is it supposed to be with an um...zu clause
    – user3684
    Commented Jan 11, 2014 at 10:27
  • I'm a little bit confused. You say you have problems with demonstrative pronouns, but all the time you are talking about possessive pronouns. The only demonstrative pronoun in your example is das.
    – Toscho
    Commented Jan 11, 2014 at 10:42

1 Answer 1

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I guess, that you mean you have problems with possessive pronouns, in this case mein.

You are correct, that werden demands a nominative object. So a usual sentence with werden has two nominative groups: the subject and the nominative object. You are also correct, that an expanded infinitive group (for example started by um) doesn't have a subject. But it can still have nominative objects as in this case. So you need to put mein in nominative.

(I'm not quite sure, if you really mean werden and not sein. Just in case: You should use sein if you want to express, that you indeed own this Koffer or not. You should use werden if you want to express, that you want to buy this Koffer or not.)

So the first sentence should be:

… es war ein anderer Koffer! Er war auch rot, aber das ist nicht genug, um mein zu sein/werden. [High register]

… es war ein anderer Koffer! Er war auch rot, aber das ist nicht genug, um meiner zu sein/werden. [Normal register for spoken or written language]

Your second example is grammatically correct, but the doch doesn't make any sense in that position. Either:

Und doch war keiner meiner. [= And yet, none was mine.]

or

Und keiner war meiner. [= And none was mine.]

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  • tyvm, helped me a lot :)
    – user3684
    Commented Jan 11, 2014 at 11:08
  • k, just did, didn't know about that option :)
    – user3684
    Commented Jan 11, 2014 at 13:04

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