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Der Preis des glamourösen Luxus, feiner Holzarbeiten und würzig duftenden Leders liegt bei wenigstens 214 000 Euro.

I came across this sentence and couldn't understand why the adjective feiner before Holzarbeiten ends with "-er". Is it genitiv plural? And if it is, why does the adjective würzig duftenden before Leders end with "-en"? Is it dativ and plural, too? Lastly why does würzig not have an adjective ending?

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  • I think this is so confusing because they inconsistently use the articles in the components. The reason might be a combination of the fact that the genitive of Luxus, Luxus, is so unmarked and rare that only there the des was explicitely added, and that Luxus is the only uncountable concept of the three. Do you find des glamourösen Luxus, der feinen Holzarbeiten und des würzig duftenden Leders easier?
    – phipsgabler
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 15:58

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Der Preis des glamourösen Luxus, feiner Holzarbeiten und würzig duftenden Leders liegt bei wenigstens 214 000 Euro.

All the items in the list are in genitive case, as they are all genitive supplements to der Preis.

Yes, Holzarbeiten is indeed plural, but feiner had an -er ending too if it was the singular die Holzarbeit. There is not article in front, so the adjective has to take that strong ending.

Same for duftenden but as it's das Leder, the strong ending ist -en.

The adjective würzig has no ending because it's not modifying Leder but duftenden.

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    Es Ist mir nicht klar, ob würzig da ein Adjektiv ist. Das kommt mir wie ein Adverb vor, denn das wirkt auf ein Adjektiv. Wenn ich das auf andere Sprache denke, oBdA Englisch, sind solche Paare der Form „etwas-ly + Adjektiv” (i.e. softly blue) immer Adverb-Adjektiv (auch wenn manchmal die -ly-Endung ausfällt).
    – c.p.
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 6:06
  • thank you, i thought that /feiner Holzarbeiten and wurzig duftende Leders/ are detalis(nebensatz?) of the /der preis des glamourüsen Luxus/ and thought that -s at the end of Leders was plural. thank you again
    – bilgeayik
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 6:06
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    The ‘adjective’ würzig has no ending because it is not an adjective that is subject to declension but an adverb (modifying an adjective) that cannot declense.
    – Jan
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 10:37
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In the example sentence, there is an enumeration of prices, all of which are in genitive case:

der Preis ...

  • ... des glamourösen Luxus (male, genitive singular)
  • ... feiner Holzarbeiten (female, genitive plural)
  • ... würzig duftenden Leders (neuter, genitive singular)

Therefore, we have that

  • glamourösen is the corresponding weak declension of the adjective glamourös,
  • feiner is the corresponding strong declension of the adjective fein,
  • duftenden is the corresponding strong declension of the first participle of the adjective duften,
  • and würzig is used as an adverb, here. Adverbs are not declined, even when they are derived from an adjective.
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  • ... the adjective duften -> ... the participle I/adjective duftend
    – johnl
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 10:44
  • @johnl, indeed. Thank you!
    – Björn Friedrich
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 11:32
  • ... the first participle of the adjective duften -> ... the first participle of the verb duften ;)
    – johnl
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 12:07
  • @johnl, you can make little corrections yourself.
    – Björn Friedrich
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 12:18
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The other answers correctly cover the adjective endings, but the sentence is unfortunately worded, or arguably one might say it is not correct. It probably has you confused because the author was confused himself when he wrote it; he could not decide whether to write about the price of a concrete object (der Luxus, with an article) or about a certain class of merchandise in general (Holzarbeiten, no article). Since the sentence deals with a concrete car model (as Google informs me), the former would have been appropriate.

If he had written the sentence like this:

Der Preis feiner Holzarbeiten und würzig duftenden Leders liegt bei 214.000 Euro.

then I would argue most people would find this to be ungrammatical, or at least an inappropriate application of formally correct grammatical forms, in light of the context (concrete car). This being so, one could certainly argue that the way the sentence was in fact written rises to the status of a grammatical mistake as well. It should have been worded like this:

Der Preis des glamourösen Luxus, der feinen Holzarbeiten und des würzig duftenden Leders liegt bei wenigstens 214 000 Euro.

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