Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 August 17
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August 17
editGerman genitive of personal names
editI was searching for something unrelated, and came across a German book titled Friedrichs von Logau Sinngedichte. At first "Friedrichs" seemed a typo, but then I saw the pic of the actual book cover, and that's what it says.
Not having ever studied German in a formal way, I was surprised by this grammar. His name was Friedrich von Logau, and my assumption was that a genitive -s would go at the end of his surname (à la Joe Biden's presidency, and not Joe's Biden presidency). I suppose it may depend on whether the "von Logau" was an actual surname, or an indication of nobility, whether inherited or personally awarded. That seems quite an abstruse bit of knowledge to have to know in advance, but what do I know?
Can a teutonophone please clarify this for me. Danke, in advance. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 03:23, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- The "Friedrichs von Logau" syntax is archaic now. In present-day German, you may still sometimes find genitive -s marked on the first name where a following von is not a proper name, as in medieval personalities (e.g. Walther(s) von der Vogelweide), but a case like "Friedrich von Logau" wouldn't fall into that category now. Also, in those cases you would generally avoid the surrounding syntax where the possessed object comes after the genitive, so you still wouldn't say Walthers von der Vogelweide Gedichte, but die Gedichte Walthers von der Vogelweide (or, more colloquially, die Gedichte von Walther von der Vogelweide). Modern-era names with the nobility marker von would generally be treated just like normal first name / family name combinations, with genitive -s at the end. In general, in these cases, where we treat the whole name as a unit and put the genitive -s at its end, we prefer the possessor–possessed ordering (Angela Merkels Programm), while syntactically complex names with genitive markers on the initial name (including those medieval von cases, rulers with ordinal numbers, names with appositions such as the elder, the great) prefer the possessed-possessor ordering (die Werke Friedrichs des Großen etc.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- How very interesting. Those subtle nuances put to shame monstrosities like "Her and I's mother spoke to she and I's father about our crazy mixed-up family dynamic". -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 10:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Those constructions put themselves to shame. —Tamfang (talk) 16:16, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- How very interesting. Those subtle nuances put to shame monstrosities like "Her and I's mother spoke to she and I's father about our crazy mixed-up family dynamic". -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 10:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Aaargh! This seems to be surprisingly messy and fuzzy. This article https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/fragen/18 (in German) has some useful but conflicting information.
- user:FutPerf seems to be correct in stating that the entire proper name, eg "Jack of Oz" is subject to declension, ergo "Jack of Oz´s". However, if the final part of the proper name relates to a location, as in "...of Oz" or "...von der Vogelweide" this may not be valid.
- It gets confusing in more tricky proper names, eg "Karl der Große". We have an article Vita Karoli Magni, Just latinise and ignore the ignoramusi. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
A long time ago, I looked up a ca. 1930 scholarly paper in a German academic journal "Orientalistische Literaturzeitung", and I noticed that the name of the printer of the journal had a very strange inflection: "J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung". Not sure if there's a genitive in there or what... AnonMoos (talk) 00:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- Johann Conrad Hinrichs has an article in the de.WP. The suffix is a - largely obsolete / archaic - indicator of possession. It s a bit similar to the English Kafkaesque or Shakespearean. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 07:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- isn't it cognate/ similar to English -ish? Then, even "J. C Hinrichish Bookstore" would look fairly odd in English... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- It is, but the (more distant, from Greek, but still cognate) suffix -ic is more productive in English. ColinFine (talk) 17:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- isn't it cognate/ similar to English -ish? Then, even "J. C Hinrichish Bookstore" would look fairly odd in English... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
This is all very interesting. Thanks to all who aided in my enlightenment. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:58, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
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