#Reflexivpronomen und Flexion

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inner cliff
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The reflexive pronouns are mich, dich, sich, uns, euch, and sich. Do these get inflected for case, i.e., are there dative forms or accusative forms of these pronouns?

I understand that pronouns (in general) have accusative and dative forms, but I am asking specifically about reflexive pronouns--do they undergo declension?

My question derived from the following sentence:

Mara möchte sie nie auffallen.
Mara never wants to attract attention (to herself).

auffallen is not a reflexive verb. So, I asked myself, what role does "sie" play in the sentence? Can it be a reflexive pronoun declined in the accusative form?

The plot thickens! My dictionary says in fact that auffallen is intransitive! So "sie" can't be in accusative form. Is that nominative!?

Here's a similar sentence with the gender replaced--which sentence is gramatically correct? I can't argue in favor of any one of them.

David möchte er nie auffallen.
David möchte ihn nie auffallen.
David möchte ihm nie auffallen.
David möchte sich nie auffallen.

chilly stream
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Mara möchte sie nie auffallen.
Mara never wants to attract attention (to herself).

  • Are you sure that's the translation of the sentence?

This is one of those sentences where I think English knowledge can lead you astray. Remember two things:

  1. In German, the subject is not necessarily the thing in position 1.
  2. Names don't change based on case, unless you do the Southern German thing of having a definite article in front of them (Das ist die Mara.)
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The way that I read this sentence is that you're getting hit with a double-whammy:

  • The thing in position 1 is actually the dative object, but
  • Because it happens to be a name without a definite article, there is absolutely nothing to mark its case, so you're mistaking it for a nominative subject.
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So the actual translation is, "She never wants to be noticed by Mara."

(by Mara) would be a dative case noun, except it can't show that, because it's a name.

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If you did the Southern German thing, it would be easier to spot: "Der Mara möchte sie nie auffallen."

"der" there being dative case of a feminine noun

chilly stream
# inner cliff The reflexive pronouns are *mich*, *dich*, *sich*, *uns*, *euch*, and *sich*. Do...

auffallen is not a reflexive verb. So, I asked myself, what role does "sie" play in the sentence? Can it be a reflexive pronoun declined in the accusative form?

"sie" is not a reflexive pronoun. The table above lists all variations of reflexive pronouns. "sie" can only ever be a normal personal pronoun. If it were reflexive, it would be "sich", 3rd person singular.

I realize that this is confusing, because "mich/mir" and "dich/dir" can in fact be both personal pronouns and reflexive pronouns. But here, it's clear: "sie" cannot be a reflexive pronoun.

As such, that leaves "sie" to either be a nominative subject, or an accusative object (but not a reflexive pronoun).

As you noted, "auffallen" is an intransitive verb, which means it has no accusative object. That only leaves "sie" being the nominative subject, meaning that "Mara" must then be the dative object.

chilly stream
# inner cliff The reflexive pronouns are *mich*, *dich*, *sich*, *uns*, *euch*, and *sich*. Do...

Here's a similar sentence with the gender replaced--which sentence is gramatically correct? I can't argue in favor of any one of them.

David möchte er nie auffallen.
David möchte ihn nie auffallen.
David möchte ihm nie auffallen.
David möchte sich nie auffallen.

  1. Is a valid sentence, but it means, "He never wants to be noticed by David." Again, this is easier if you do the Southern German thing to mark case with names: "Dem David möchte er nie auffallen."
  2. Is an invalid sentence, "auffallen" is an intransitive verb and thus has no accusative object like "ihn".
  3. Is a valid sentence, meaning, "David never wants to be noticed by him."
  4. I think is a valid sentence? I'm not sure, ask a native on that one. "sich" can in fact be a dative object, but in that case, it's like, "David never wants to be noticed by himself." Idk if that works logically, it might, might not.
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Oh, I never stated it earlier: "auffallen" is used as

Die Frau fällt dem Mann auf.
The woman is noticed by the man.

So there's a nominative subject (die Frau), and then a dative object (dem Mann). Because German is a bit loose with word order, you can swap the positions of the subject and object:

Dem Mann fällt die Frau auf.

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So when looking at any nouns in this sentence, there's only two options:

  1. nominative subject
  2. dative object
inner cliff
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Wow, thank you. You've removed a giant mental block...𝅘𝅥𝅮 I can see clearly now... 𝅘𝅥𝅮

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Are you sure that's the translation of the sentence?

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I admit it's mine.

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But! Google confirmed 😉

chilly stream
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But if you do the Southern German thing and add the definite article in front of the name, DeepL suddenly translates it correctly.

inner cliff
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If I modified your nametag to "Ich korrigiere mich" then I would be using the reflexive pronoun mich and not (as it stands) the accusative form: "I correct myself" ("korrigiere mich" is in imperative form? so "correct me"?)

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  1. In German, the subject is not necessarily the thing in position 1.
    Darn, I should have known better. Of course, you're right.
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As you noted, "auffallen" is an intransitive verb, which means it has no accusative object. That only leaves "sie" being the nominative subject, meaning that "Mara" must then be the dative object.

That's quite an exercise in logical deduction. Do you know if native speakers do this kind of reasoning on the fly, they must be prepared for such situations of uncertainty. I guess so and comes with years of practice.

chilly stream
chilly stream
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This is why the sentence "Mir geht's gut" is phrased the way it is, with "mir" out front, rather than "Es geht mir gut."

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"mir" is a dative object, clearly, and it's in position 1

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It turns out, one of the many tendencies that German has is that it does like having the person involved in a sentence to be in position 1, even if they aren't the subject.

inner cliff
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Interesting, like out of respect?

chilly stream
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it's a language that evolved over thousands of years, it's not like a personal thing, it's just something that happens quite frequently, so they're used to it

inner cliff
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Dem Mann fällt die Frau auf.

This is great, thanks for the example.

chilly stream
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When a native German hears the sentence and knows the verb is "auffallen", they're used to automatically sorting things, and are quite okay with the dative object being in position 1.

They know "sie" can't be dative object, so they then recognize that it must be the subject, and "Mara" as the dative object.

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But like I said before, in southern Germany, they still use definite articles with names, and in my opinion, it is precisely because it helps with this sort of thing, makes everything more clearly marked.

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The other thing is that, in real life, a sentence is never understood by itself, but rather it has a bunch of prior sentences before it, which are giving you a context and thus helping you interpret the current sentence.

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So if you have a long story where you're talking about how Laura hates her boss Mara, and Laura is always hiding in her office to avoid her, and then right after that you say, "Mara möchte sie nie auffallen."

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You sort of already have a good idea of where the sentence is going, before you've even heard it.

inner cliff
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That makes sense.

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This has been very helpful, thank you!

red aurora
chilly stream
red aurora
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if you want to express that youd just cut the object all together