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I am struggling to understand the grammar in this sentence. My thought is that it is the future perfect tense: (conjugated werden + past participle + haben or sein), but this sentence doesn't contain the 'haben or sein' element, and the 'werden' is at the end.

Is this somehow due to modal auxiliary verb, müssen? But having looked it up, the future tense looks something like (conjugated werden + infinitive modal).

Any help on what grammar is being used in this sentence will be much appreciated.

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    Maybe the master Yoda version helps? "My hairs must having been cut become."
    – user48613
    May 14, 2021 at 20:01
  • Its actually "Been cut my hairs must become." but that's just with the Yoda sequence. It still matches the German though.
    – user48613
    May 14, 2021 at 20:22

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Is this somehow due to modal auxiliary verb, müssen?

Yes, it is.

Müssen governs the infinitive. The infinitive can be active or passive. In this case it's passive.

An example with the infinitive present active schneiden:

Ich muss meine Haare schneiden.

The infinitive present passive is:

geschnitten werden
to be cut

With müssen:

Meine Haare müssen geschnitten werden.
My hair has to be cut.

These sentences are all in present tense. Conjugating müssen leaves the infinitive unaffected as long as the temporal relation (anteriority/simultaneity/posteriority) doesn't change. So future tense would be:

Meine Haare werden geschnitten werden müssen.
My hair will have to be cut.

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Werden plus past participle is simply passive:

My hair has to be/get cut.

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