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Here is my question. I've tried reading other threads, but I couldn't find an answer. I have to translate this sentence:
with her typical beauty and kindness
ihrer and üblichen are in the feminine singular (Dativ) because of the following nounihren and üblichen are in the plural because they refer to two nounsWhich of the alternative is correct?
Your second alternative doesn't work in German unfortunately, although it would seem logical. The attributes have to be congruent with the nearest noun.
So it has to be
mit ihrer üblichen Schönheit und Freundlichkeit
and, like in the English version, it's a bit ambiguous if "ihrer üblichen" only refers to "Schönheit" or to both "Schönheit und Freundlichkeit".
If you want to make the attribute truly unambiguously refer to both nouns you're losing elegance. Two possible ways to do that would be:
mit ihren üblichen Qualitäten Schönheit und Freundlichkeit
mit ihrer üblichen Schönheit und ihrer üblichen Freundlichkeit
If you'd want to have "üblichen" refer to "Schönheit" only, you could do that by repeating the article or, in this case, the personal pronoun that replaces the article:
mit ihrer üblichen Schönheit und ihrer Freundlichkeit
If the two qualities had different grammatical genders, e.g. if you'd like to use "Schönheit (fem.) und Charme (masc.)", you would more or less be forced to use one of the more inelegant ways to put it:
mit ihren üblichen Qualitäten Schönheit und Charme
mit ihrer üblichen Schönheit und ihrem üblichen Charme
Only 1. is correct.
The reason is that the possessive (ihrer) is an Artikelwort, which means that is behaves like an article. Because of this, it takes the strong ending (-er in feminine singular dative) whereas the following adjectie takes the weak ending (-en).
Compare:
Mit ihrer üblichen Schönheit und Freundlichkeit.
Mit der üblichen Schönheit und Freundlichkeit.
The adjective is singular because it must match the following noun. The fact that there are two nouns has no influence.
You are asking whether it is possible to use "one adjective with two singular nouns (same gender)". In the early stage of New High German it was even possible to use one adjective with two singular nouns of different genders. Thus in Luther's famous hymn:
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, ein' gute Wehr und Waffen
where Wehr is feminine singular and Waffen is (in early NHG) neuter singular (later reinterpreted as the plural of the feminine noun Waffe). In either case, "ein(e) gute…" agrees only with Wehr, not with Waffen.
