2

I am really confused if masculine nouns in nominative should take the -(e)r ending or not. Or when.

This article gives examples in nominative both with and without -er ending:

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-possessive-adjectives/

Seiner Hund ist müde.

Mein Hund ist da.

This is absolutely confusing. I see no difference in case there.

I guess the same question applies for neutral nouns and -(e)s ending in nominative.

EDIT: it’s not just that website.

The “contradiction in real life” is that other adjectives do take the -er ending in nominative. I was just not sure about possessive adjectives. And could not find enough relevant examples online.

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  • 2
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the confusion is caused by an erroneous reference. No contradiction in real life. – guidot Mar 27 at 14:16
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    It's a mistake on the webpage. – Björn Friedrich Mar 27 at 14:37
  • The edit above is not helpful to clarify, what part of the problem remains, and the osbsolete stuff should be removed. I woud even consider to delete this question and ask a new one. – guidot Mar 27 at 14:40
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    I think the question is perfectly clear. We have words like mein/meiner and also words like schwarz/schwarzer. So it's reasonable to assume it might be "meiner schwarzer Hund". – infinitezero Mar 27 at 15:01
9

The possesive pronounds (mein, dein, sein, ...) stay the same if followed by a masculine noun, not necessarily directly followed.

mein Hund
mein schöner Hund
mein schneller, schöner, toller Hund

If you do not want to repeat the noun, you can use meiner instead:

A: Mein Hund ist schwarz. Und dein Hund?
B: Meiner ist braun.
A: Mein Computer hat 16GB Ram. Und deiner?
B: Meiner hat nur 8GB.

It follows that

Seiner Hund ist müde.

is incorrect and should read

Sein Hund ist müde.

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  • Does this mean that this is wrongly formulated: “Seiner Hund ist müde” ? – waverider Mar 27 at 14:10
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    Yes, that is a mistake. – infinitezero Mar 27 at 14:11
3

The confusion is partly based on terminology. German has possessive determiners, pronouns and adjectives.

Possessive determiners have no ending in the nominative singular masculine and nominative and accusative singular neuter. Determiners never occur by themselves; they are accompanied by an adjective or noun. If there are any adjectives, they carry the strong endings.

Mein neuer Kollege kommt aus Bayern.
Ich habe mein altes Handy verloren.

Possessive pronouns have -er, -(e)s in this context. A pronoun occurs alone, in place of a combination of article and noun.

Da hängt ein Mantel. Ist das deiner? (=dein Mantel)
Ich habe mein Wörterbuch vergessen. Kann ich deins benutzen? (=dein Wörterbuch)

Possessive adjectives are rare and occur with a definite article in front. They inflect weakly.

Ihr Name ist so bekannt wie der meine. (usually with pronoun: wie meiner)
andere Leben als das meine (also with pronoun: als meins)

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  • I don’t know if this is traditional nomenclature in English, but what you call possessive articles here I would expect to be called possessive determinatives (at least in English), since they’re not actual articles. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 28 at 17:58
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    @JanusBahsJacquet It's a false friend (based on German Possessivartikel). – David Vogt Mar 29 at 19:23

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