A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
Sie geht in den Laden und kauft ein neues Fahrrad.
She goes into the shop and buys a new bicycle.
Wir gehen nicht ins Kino, sondern in die Bibliothek.
We are not going to the cinema but (rather) to the library.
Entweder wir fahren mit dem Bus, oder wir gehen zu Fuß.
Either we take the bus, or we walk.
You can use the “verb in second position” rule from Unit 1 to help you identify the
core elements of subject, verb, and object in these sentences. For example, if, after
a coordinating conjunction, the first word is a conjugated verb, then you know the
missing “first position” element must be implied (carried over) from the preceding
clause.
Subordinating Conjunctions
These conjunctions do affect the sentence word order. The verb in a subordinate
clause stands in final position within that clause. Note the locations of the verb
waren and its subject ihre Eltern in this example, using the conjunction als (when /
while):
Sie wohnte in Berlin, als ihre Eltern noch Studenten waren.
She lived in Berlin while her parents were still students.
When a subordinate clause is first in a sentence, then the finite verb of the main
clause immediately follows the subordinate clause. Note the locations of the verb
wohnte and its subject sie (its second occurrence in this sentence) in the next
example, which simply follows the basic rule that the main verb of a German
statement always comes in second position.
Als sie jung war, wohnte sie in Berlin.
When she was young she lived in Berlin.
A subordinate clause is also called a dependent clause because it does not make
sense by itself. In German all dependent clauses are separated from main clauses
by commas and the verb or verbs of the dependent clause stand at the end of that
clause. This is an important punctuation practice worth remembering since it will
enable you to split longer sentences apart when reading and translating.
The most common German subordinating conjunctions are: