German Language Stack Exchange is a bilingual question and answer site for speakers of all levels who want to share and increase their knowledge of the German language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Sign up to join this community
For one of my sentences, a native German speaker corrected it to be a “dative + sein” construction.
Original: Wenn es nur wahr wäre.
Suggestion: Wenn dem nur so wäre!
They proposed that the suggested structure was more elegant and gave a second example:
Original: Das war nicht aber so.
Suggestion: Dem war nicht aber so.
Can someone please tell me what the underlying grammar rule is for the “dative + sein” structure and whether it applies to other combinations?
Wenn es nur so wäre! — Es war aber nicht so.
Wenn das nur so wäre! — Das war aber nicht so.
These are both perfectly okay. The latter has a pointing finger to the thing in question.
Wenn dem nur so wäre! — Dem war aber nicht so.
This is an idiom, dem ist so, which is in wide use. Sein+Dativ is in Grimms' grammar, so it's not ungrammatical but it doesn't fit any system. I can't think of any other use either.
As Janka says, this construction is correct and widely used.
It should be noted, however, that "dem ist so" can sound formal to the degree of stiltedness in many contexts. I've rarely heard it in normal conversation -- and then usually in an ironic context.
For a non-native, I'd say it is safer to stick to the less elegant but much more common versions:
Das ist so.
Es ist so.
Es ist wahr.
etc.
