#are all masculine nouns weak nouns?

6 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

worldly bone
#

If so, what are their opposites?

idle lava
#

No, only a subset of masculine nouns are weak nouns. The majority are normal.

tawny obsidian
#

If so, what are their opposites?
this question is meaningless, weak nouns aren't weak in meaning, they just follow a grammatical pattern that has few distinct forms

unkempt sphinx
#

faq weak nouns

versed sparrowBOT
#
Weak Nouns

Weak nouns are called this way because they receive the same endings as adjectives inflected with weak endings. They take an additional ending -n in every case except nominative singular. This is also known as N-Declension and affects almost exclusively masculine nouns.

Nominativ: der Junge, die Junge__n__
Genitiv: des Junge__n__, der Junge__n__
Dativ: dem Junge__n__, den Junge__n__
Akkusativ: den Junge__n__, die Junge__n__

Some nouns end with a suffix -en to make the pronunciation easier:
der Mensch, den Mensch__en__

‼ Das Herz is the only non-masculine (neuter) noun with N-Declension❣

So how do we recognize these nouns? We can divide them into 3 big groups:

  1. nouns of Greek and Latin origin,
  2. nouns ending with -e (most of these refer to people or animals),
  3. other random German nouns (Mensch, Herr, Student, Nachbar, Prinz etc.)

Another way to divide the groups could be:

  1. nouns denoting male beings in general (der Bauer, der Knabe, der Herr, der Junge, der Kunde etc.)
  2. nouns indicating nationality or religious affiliation (der Chinese, der Russe, der Türke, der Jude, der Katholik, der Protestant)
  3. nouns designating male beings and ending in the foreign suffixes (-ant, -arch, -ast, -ege, -ent, -ist, -oge, -om, -oph, -ot: der Kollege, der Student, der Psychologe, der Polizist, der Philosoph)

‼ der Käse and words ending with -ee aren’t weak nouns.

Genitive of Weak Nouns
You might have noticed from the examples above that weak nouns don’t have the additional -s in genitive like other masculine nouns.
Some exceptions are das Herz and nouns of group 3 that don’t refer to people nor animals (Name, Wille, Glaube, Buchstabe etc.), which take both the -n and -s endings.
Example: der Name, des Name__ns__.

unkempt sphinx
#

@worldly bone