Declensions of adjectives - indefinite article vs no article

Question

I am having a terrible time understanding an area of declensions for adjectives. Let me see if I can explain it:

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First let 's review the indefinite article.

Masculine: Ein Hund
Femenine : Eine Katze
Neuter   : Ein Kaninchen
Plural   : Vögel

As I was taught, the plural in this case uses no article at all, right?

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Second, Let's see declensions for adjectives. It depends on what kind of articles they are using:

This is the declension with the Indefinite article (ein, eine..), possesive articles (meine, deine...) and negative articles (keine).

In this table it uses the possessive as example, but it would be the same for the indefinite, something like:

╔═════╦══════════════════╦═══════════════════╦═══════════════════════╦═══════════════╗
║     ║ Masc             ║ Fem               ║ Neuter                ║ Plural        ║
╠═════╬══════════════════╬═══════════════════╬═══════════════════════╬═══════════════╣
║ Nom ║ ein kleiner Hund ║ eine kleine Katze ║ ein kleines Kaninchen ║ kleinen Vögel ║
╚═════╩══════════════════╩═══════════════════╩═══════════════════════╩═══════════════╝

The only difference with the possessive is that there is not indefinite article in plural.

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Third. Let's see the declensions for adjectives without article. (This in itself is already confusing, because as I just said, the indefinite article has cases where it has no article at all)

Here we see that the plural uses "warme Brötchen", but if we recall the table of the indefinite article, the plural did not use any article as well, but the ending of the adjective was -en.

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So my question is, if I have a plural in nominative with no article, which ending should I use? -en or -e?

Answer 1

Kleinen Vögel in your second table is incorrect. The adjective shouldn't be treated as though the (non-existent) plural form of the indefinite article were still in front of it but somehow invisible, even if the noun that you're changing to the plural originally included an article.

If there's no article or other determiner in front of the plural form of the noun, the adjective ends in e, as shown in your third table.

ein kleiner Vogel -> kleine Vögel

mein kleiner Vogel -> meine kleinen Vögel

der kleine Vogel -> die kleinen Vögel

Answer 2

I fiddled out the source of your tables and found them entirely correct. In contrary, the text table you posted is wrong in nominative plural.

The fundamental adjective declension table is this one:

      m    f    n    p
Nom  -e   -e   -e   -en
Gen  -en  -en  -en  -en
Acc  -en  -e   -e   -en
Dat  -en  -en  -en  -en

So genitive and dative are super-simple, as plural. You only have to remember the five exceptions.

But WHEN DOES THIS TABLE APPLY? I think this is the problem you are facing. The answer is simple: This table applies as soon you have put the proper case ending ("the hard ending" in the tutorial linked above) on another connected word. For example an article. Or a pronoun. When you cannot put it there, you have to put it to the adjective and forget about the special adjective declension table.

Vögel fliegen.

Kleine Vögel fliegen. (proper nominative plural case ending)

Meine kleinen Vögel fliegen. (proper nominative plural case ending on meine, adjective ending on klein.)

Eine schwarze Katze kommt auf ihn zu. (nominative)

Die Augen der schwarzen Katze funkeln. (genitive)

Er begegnet einer schwarzen Katze. (dative)

Er sieht eine schwarze Katze. (accusative)

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There is one exception, though: if you have a collation of adjectives, they either all take the proper case ending or all the special adjective ending.

Es ist ein großer brauner Hund entlaufen.

Es ist ein großer braune Hund entlaufen.

Der große braune Hund ist entlaufen.