german_sentence_builder

Extended modifiers
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Modifiers include those words that help to describe a noun or pronoun. Some
modifiers are called adjectives. If an adjective follows a verb like sein (to be) or
werden (to become), it is a predicate adjective. For example:
Der Mann ist alt.
Sie wurde krank.
The man is old.
She became ill.
Attributive adjectives
If the adjective stands in front of the noun, it is called an attributive adjective and
in German it will have an ending, and that ending will be determined by gender,
number, and case. For example:
Kennst du den alten Mann?
Sie besuchte ein krankes Kind.
Do you know the old man?
She visited a sick child.
If you think about it, attributive adjectives play about the same role as certain
relative clauses in which a predicate adjective is used. For example:
Kennst du den Mann, der alt ist?
Kennst du den alten Mann?
Sie besuchte ein Kind, das
krank ist.
Sie besuchte ein krankes Kind.
Do you know the man who is old?
Do you know the old man?
She visited a child that is sick.
She visited a sick child.
The differences are the need for an ending on an attributive adjective and the need
for a subject and verb in the relative clause. The use of an attributive adjective,
therefore, is a bit more efficient and requires less time to say and less space to
write.
Attributive adjectives can be extended somewhat by using other modifiers—
adverbs—to define them. For example:
Sie hat einen ziemlich schnellen
Wagen.
Das ist eine sehr wichtige Tatsache.
She has a rather fast car.
That’s a very important fact.
The modifiers in the example sentences above were extended by the adverbs ziemlich
and sehr. And, as you can clearly see, German and English function in the
very same way when adverbs modify adjectives. By the way, that word extended
will become important later on in this chapter.
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