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The nouns of the German language have several properties, some unique. As in many related Indo-European languages, German nouns possess a grammatical gender; the three genders are masculine, feminine, and neuter. Words for objects without obvious masculine or feminine characteristics like 'bridge' or 'rock' can be masculine, feminine, or neuter.
This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately derived from the same root, generally Proto-Indo-European, as in cow and beef, both ultimately from PIE *gʷōus.
All German nouns are included in one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. While the gender often does not directly influence the plural forms of nouns, [1] [2] there are exceptions, particularly when it comes to people and professions (e.g. Ärzte/Ärztinnen).
The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages.Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of English in that it has, among other things, cases and gender in nouns and a strict verb-second word order in main clauses.
An augmentative (abbreviated AUG) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive . Overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque and so in some languages, augmentatives are used primarily for comical effect or as pejoratives .
In some cases, ablaut would be expected based on the form (given numerous other examples of ablauting nouns of the same form), but a single ablaut variant is found throughout the paradigm. In such cases, it is often assumed that the noun had showed ablaut in early PIE but was generalized to a single form by late PIE or shortly afterwards.
However, most modern Germanic languages, including Dutch and German, have a more restrictive word order known as V2 word order, in which the finite verb, whether it is an auxiliary or not, is always placed second in main clauses (however not in Dutch and German subordinate clauses).
Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are rendered in an inflected or periphrastic way to indicate a comparative degree, property, quality, or quantity of a corresponding word, phrase, or clause.