I'm reading Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung. The second sentence is: 'Er lag auf seinem panzerartig harten Rücken [...]'. I think this sentence means 'He lied on his shell-like hard back [...]". In particular, 'panzerartig' seems to me as an adjective meaning shell-like ('panzer' + '-artig'). But if it's an adjective why doesn't it get an -en suffix like 'hart' does in order to agree with 'dem Rücken'? I would write this sentence as 'Er lag auf seinem panzerartigen harten Rücken [...]'; why is this wrong?
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2Hint: if an adjective is not inflected it is probably an adverb.– Carsten SCommented Jul 14, 2017 at 23:52
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So is it "hard-like-shell back"? Can 'panzerartig' be both adverb and adjective then?– user28927Commented Jul 15, 2017 at 1:01
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1 Answer
Sometimes it's small things that make a difference:
Sie wusch ihr künstliches blondes Haar.
She washed her artificial blonde hair.
Sie wusch ihr künstlich blondes Haar.
She washed her artificially blonde hair.
Similarily, in your example:
Er lag auf seinem panzerartig harten Rücken.
panzerartig describes hart, not the Rücken.
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Can any adjective potentially be an adverb in German? (Sorry if this is a very stupid question...) Commented Jul 15, 2017 at 1:03
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1@KilianFoth "Die dunkelrot gleißende Sonne ging unter". "Rot" works well as a modifier of a participle.– tofroCommented Jul 15, 2017 at 8:32
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1@tofro Jedoch dunkelrot gleißend ist logisch unschlüssig und daher kein gutes Beispiel: Gleißend ist sehr, sehr hell. Dunkelrot ist aber eher... äh... dunkel. Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 10:16
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