Sentence Structure: The Verb and Its Objects

In the first chapter we learned that in the German main clause, the normal word order is the following:

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4
Subject	Verb	Object	Adverb, prepositonal phrase, etc.
Andreas	stellt	den Schreibtisch	an die Wand.

Word or phrase to be emphasized	Verb	Subject	Object, adverb, or other phrase
Morgen	machen	die Freunde	einen Ausflug.
Einen Ausflug	machen	die Freunde	morgen.

We know that the verb hardly ever leaves the second position. However, the subject moves from the first position quite frequently; almost always to a position right after the verb.

In most cases, an adverb or a prepositional phrase is put into the first position, but it may be an object too.

Think of the verb in second position, and the verbal elements at the end of the sentence, as the immovables around which the other elements move!

What happens if we have two objects, a direct and an indirect one? There are three possible scenarios, depending on whether the objects are nouns or pronouns:

1. If both objects are nouns, the indirect object precedes the direct object .

Subject	Verb	indirect object (dative)	direct object (accusative)
Ulrike	öffnet	dem Studenten	die Tür.

2. If one of the objects is a pronoun, the pronoun always directly follows the verb:

//Popup Window Script //By JavaScript Kit (http://javascriptkit.com) //JavaScript tutorials and over 400+ free scripts function openpopup(){ var popurl="objihm.gif" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=379,height=65,toolbar") } function openpopup2(){ var popurl="objsie.gif" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=379,height=65,toolbar") } function openpopup3(){ var popurl="objboth.gif" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=379,height=65,toolbar") }


Subject	Verb	indirect object (dative)	direct object (accusative)
Ulrike	öffnet	ihm	die Tür.
Subject	Verb	direct object (accusative)	indirect object (dative)
Ulrike	öffnet	sie	dem Studenten.

3. If both objects are pronouns, the direct object precedes the indirect object:


Subject	Verb	direct object (accusative)	indirect object (dative)	Click Here for Both Objects Animation
Ulrike	öffnet	sie	ihm.

This pattern looks complicated but it should be easy to learn because we do it in English, too. Usually in English the indirect object comes right after the verb, but, as in German, this changes if there is a pronoun direct object. But in English if the indirect object leaves its place after the verb we have to add "to" in order to clarify its function. In the following sentences, Mary/her/to Mary/to her is the indirect object, and the book/it is the direct object:

I gave Mary the book.
I gave her the book.
I gave it to Mary.
I gave it to her.

So - you can trust your instincts to some extent, if you remember that the German dative form substitutes either for "to X" or for "X the indirect object right after the verb".

Remember also that those words or elements in a sentence that carry the most informative value for the speaker are usually either at the beginning or toward the end of a sentence. That explains why pronouns, which have very little informative value, follow the verb - which means they are usually in the middle of the sentence.

It is also true that words that the speaker wants to emphasize are usually placed at the beginning of the sentence. So if you want to emphasize that Ulrike opens the door to him (and not to her or them!) you may say:

Ihm öffnet Ulrike die Tür.

Or if you want to emphasize that Ulrike opens the door (and not the cupboard) for him, you may say:

Die Tür öffnet ihm Ulrike.

Note that the pronoun still directly follows the verb, even before the inverted subject.