2.6 Negation — nicht and kein — Epoché
What you will be able to do Choose between the two German negators: one denies a verb or a whole statement, the other denies a noun. Put the verb negator in the right place, which is late in the sentence and in front of certain things rather than after them. Recognise that the noun negator is the indefinite article with one letter in front, so it inflects exactly as that article does — including the one masculine change from the last lesson. Map both of them onto English, where not and no and not a and any divide the same work up differently. Prerequisites : 2.5 — you need the nominative and the accusative, because the noun negator takes the same endings as the indefinite article and one of those endings is the masculine object form. See 2.5 Grammar if the change from ein to einen is not yet automatic. English negates with one word and a good deal of machinery around it. I do not smoke. She is not here. He has not arrived. Notice what English needs: a negator, and an auxiliary verb for it to lean on, invented from nothing in the first of those three sentences. German needs neither the auxiliary nor the invention. It has two negators, it attaches them directly to what they deny, and it never manufactures a helper verb. The choice between the two is almost mechanical. If what you are denying is a noun with no article or with an indefinite article, use one of them. For everything else — the verb, an adjective, an adverb, the whole statement — use the other. That is the rule, and the rest of this lesson is the placement of the second one and the inflection of the first. The verb negator and where it stands The general negator is nicht . It is related to English not and naught — all three go back to old compounds meaning not a thing — and it never changes form. The whole difficulty is position. The default is simple: it comes late. In a short sentence with nothing but a subject and a verb, it comes last. German English Ich verstehe nicht. [1] I do not understand. Ich rauche nicht. [2] I don't smoke. Das funktioniert nicht. [3] This isn't working. Ich kenne ihn nicht. [4] I am not acquainted with him. Er versteht dich nicht. [5] He doesn't understand you. Look at the English column of the first two and count the words German did without. English had to conjure an auxiliary — do — purely so that the negator would have something to attach to, and in the second row it contracted the pair into one syllable. German simply puts the negator after the verb and its objects and stops. There is no German equivalent of the English do in negation, and the absence is a simplification worth savouring, because it is the mirror image of the usual complaint about the language. Rows four and five show the first refinement. An object pronoun comes before the negator, not after it. Pronouns are light and they crowd towards the front of the middle field, so the negator ends up behind them. This is a general property of German pronouns that will get a lesson of its own on the order inside the middle field; for now, learn it as part of the negation: pronouns first, negator after them. Adverbs of time usually behave the same way as pronouns, and short place words often do, which gives the pattern in the next three sentences. German English Ich arbeite heute nicht. [6] I'm not working today. Er wohnt hier nicht. [7] He doesn't live here. Ich komme morgen nicht. [8] I won't be coming tomorrow. Compare these with the English glosses and the mirror appears again, as it did in the lesson on the bracket. English puts the negator early, right after the auxiliary, and the time word at the end. German puts the time word in the middle and the negator at the end. Two languages, the same three pieces, opposite order. Now the exception, which is the only piece of placement you have to memorise. The negator stands in front of a complement — that is, in front of an adjective or a noun that the verb for to be links to the subject, and in front of a place expression that the verb needs or that says where something ends up. Complements sit at the very end of the clause, in the position the right wall of the bracket occupied in the lesson on the bracket, and the negator goes immediately before that wall rather than after it. With wohnen , which needs a place: Er wohnt nicht hier. , Er wohnt nicht in Berlin. German English Das ist nicht fair. [9] That's not fair. Das ist nicht einfach. [10] That's not easy. Das ist nicht Französisch. [11] That's not French. That is the whole rule, and it is easier to state as a single principle than as two. The negator goes as late as it can without falling off the end of the structure. If the clause ends in a participle, an infinitive or a complement, the negator stands just in front of that ending. If it does not, the negator comes last. One rule, two appearances. The third row is the sentence to remember, because the next section will contradict it with the other negator and the difference will be the whole point. The noun negator The other negator is kein , and its shape gives away what it is. Take the indefinite article, put the letter k in front, and you have it. It behaves as the article behaves, taking exactly the same endings, and it means precisely what English means by not a or no or not any . Form Where it is used kein masculine or neuter noun as subject, and neuter noun as object — the bare form, matching ein keine feminine noun in either case, and any plural — matching eine keinen masculine noun as object — the one changed form, matching einen Three forms, and you know all three already, because they are the three forms of the indefinite article from the last two lessons. Nothing new has to be learned except the initial consonant. Note the second row: the plural takes the feminine form, which is how German gets an equivalent of English no friends — a plural after a word that looks like an indefinite article, which English cannot do with a at all. German English Ich habe kein Geld. [12] I do