Der Vater widerspricht dem Sohn.
Why does "der Sohn" get dative case here? And not the accusative case? To me, the son seems to be the direct object.
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Sign up to join this communityDer Vater widerspricht dem Sohn.
Why does "der Sohn" get dative case here? And not the accusative case? To me, the son seems to be the direct object.
Yes, "der Sohn" is the direct object of the sentence - but it's not in the accusative.
This is one of quite some possible examples where "direct object == accusative" is not true and shows you shouldn't assume such a congruence.
Many German verbs that express opposition through "wider-" and "gegen-" prefixes rule the dative.
German doesn't have the concept of direct and indirect objects. It does have accusative objects, dative objects and even genitive objects.
Widersprechen takes a dative object
These pronouns help to figure out the right case in German:
wer? -> nominative
wen? -> accusative
wem? -> dative
wessen? -> genitive
You ask:
Wem widerspricht der Vater?
The answer is:
Dem Sohn. (Dative object)
So you get:
Der Vater widerspricht dem Sohn.
the preposition wider generally takes the dative "wider der Natur", hence we could analyse this as "Er spricht wider dem Sohn".