Verbs and cases: valency

In German, the link between the verb and the other parts of the sentence is provided mainly through the use of cases. In English, we can tell who is doing what to whom from the order of the various elements: first the subject, then the verb, and then the objects (in the order indirect object – direct object). In a sentence like My sister gave her friend Monika the tickets yesterday we cannot move the elements round without saying something quite different, e.g.: Her friend gave my sister that book yesterday. In German, though, we can move the various elements around in the sentence (mainly for reasons of emphasis, as explained in 5.1) without changing the essential meaning:

1. (i) Meine Schwester hat gestern ihrer Freundin Monika die Karten gegeben

2. (ii) Ihrer Freundin Monika hat meine Schwester gestern die Karten gegeben

3. (iii) Die Karten hat meine Schwester gestern ihrer Freundin Monika gegeben

4. (iv) Meine Schwester hat die Karten gestern ihrer Freundin Monika gegeben

Realizing how the cases work to form the framework of a sentence is an important step in being able to use German effectively.

With different verbs we find different ways of expressing these links to the rest of the sentence. Some verbs, like schlagen, have an accusative object, others, like dienen, have a dative object, whilst some, like geben in the example above, have both an accusative (direct) object and a dative (indirect) object.