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Suppose I am building a modal sentence with a separable/trenbare verb. Does the verb at the end of the sentence still get separated ?

Is it "Ich muss gehen zurück"

Or "Ich muss zurückgehen" ?

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  • 4
    The plain infinitive is never separated for separable verbs. – chirlu Feb 3 '16 at 23:41
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The separable verb is only separated when it's used in second position in a main clause. In all other cases (last position in a subclause, as infinitive or participle) it's not separated. However, the past participle marker -ge- is inserted in between the prefix and the verb.

Ich gehe zurück.

Ich muss zurückgehen.

..., weil ich zurückgehe.

Ich bin zurückgegangen.

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When modal verbs are used, the separable verbs stay intact:

E.g. Ich muss heimgehen.

When the separable verbs are used by themselves, they separate:

E.g. Ich komme heim.

Hope it helps.

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  • what if it in relative construction is like: "er,der kommt heim." is this work somehow? – Dragut Feb 6 '16 at 22:02
  • Er, der gerade erst heimgekommen ist, ist mein Mann. – DerPolyglott33 Feb 6 '16 at 22:05
  • What if it is in present contruction like: "er, der jetzt kommt heim." or "er,der jetzt heimkommt" which works? – Dragut Feb 6 '16 at 22:28
  • The second one, dude – DerPolyglott33 Feb 6 '16 at 22:35

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