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In a children's book, I read the following sentence:
Die Kinder sitzen alle schon in ihren Bänken.
I understand the sentence as "All the children are already sitting on their benches".
The position of alle after the verb is something I have not seen before. I would have expected to see "Alle Kinder" or just "Die Kinder". Or does alle have some special meaning in this arrangement?
No it does not have a special meaning. It is used in this construct to emphasise that ALL children have taken their place already
Let me illustrate possible locations of alle in another similar example:
Die Kinder trinken ihre Limonade.
Now when putting emphasis on the fact that it was all children we may say:
- Alle Kinder trinken ihre Limonade.
or to shift the emphasis on all were drinking:
- Die Kinder trinken alle ihre Limonade.
However now it becomes unclear if it were all the children, or if all their lemonade was drunk.
- Die Kinder trinken alle ihre Limonade.
To clarify that the emphasis was on the lemonade we may better use all instead:
- Die Kinder trinken all ihre Limonade.
Do not get confused by another colloquial use of alle in the meaning of completely:
- Die Kinder trinken ihre Limonade alle.
This would mean The children are drinking up their lemonade.
Grammatically we could even create a tongue twister and say:
- Alle Kinder trinken alle all(e) ihre Limonade alle.
