Giomach Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 I can't understand the grammar of this sentence, from a translation of Almayer's Folly: Sie war bei Bewußtsein, und im tiefen Frieden, in der Ruhe des tropischen Abends, die auf den Tumult der Schlacht folgten, sah sie zu, wie alle jene, die sie in der ihr eigenen barbarischen Weise auf Erden geliebt hatte, in einer großen, lodernden und qualmenden Feuersbrunst in die Dunkelheit hinaustrieben. der (underlined): is it Artikel or Relativpronomen? ihr (the next word): is it Personalpronomen or Possessivepronomen? Or is there a mistake in the book? I could understand "in ihrer eigenen barbarischen Weise", would that be a correct way to say the same thing? Vielen Dank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 33 minutes ago, Giomach said: I can't understand the grammar of this sentence, from a translation of Almayer's Folly: der (underlined): is it Artikel or Relativpronomen? ihr (the next word): is it Personalpronomen or Possessivepronomen? Or is there a mistake in the book? I could understand "in ihrer eigenen barbarischen Weise", would that be a correct way to say the same thing? Vielen Dank. 'der' is an article with reference to 'Weise' ----> der barbarischen Weise. I am not 100 % sure about the second one, but I am pretty positive it is a possessive pronoun. However, there is something else that is wrong. Sie war bei Bewußtsein, und im tiefen Frieden, in der Ruhe des tropischen Abends, die auf den Tumult der Schlacht folgten, sah sie zu, The 'die' after Abends is referring to Ruhe, so it has to be folgte instead of folgten...at least I think that is the way it should be written. Anyway, this sentence is very difficult to understand and I wouldn't exactly call this good style. After 'Abends' I would actually expect a relative pronoun referring to 'Abends' and not something referring to Ruhe. It is not impossible to do so but it is definitely hart to understand and as I said before, if the author wants the 'die' to refer back to 'Ruhe', it must be 'folgte' instead of 'folgten'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giomach Posted December 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 Thanks, that has helped. In my copy of the book, Almayers Wahn, published by Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag in 1972, the sentence is as I wrote it here. There are other printings of the same translation (by Günther Danehl) in libraries but I cannot access them. Again, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 5 minutes ago, Giomach said: Thanks, that has helped. In my copy of the book, Almayers Wahn, published by Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag in 1972, the sentence is as I wrote it here. There are other printings of the same translation (by Günther Danehl) in libraries but I cannot access them. Again, thanks. You are welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 4 hours ago, linguaholic said: 'der' is an article with reference to 'Weise' ----> der barbarischen Weise. I am not 100 % sure about the second one, but I am pretty positive it is a possessive pronoun. However, there is something else that is wrong. Sie war bei Bewußtsein, und im tiefen Frieden, in der Ruhe des tropischen Abends, die auf den Tumult der Schlacht folgten, sah sie zu, The 'die' after Abends is referring to Ruhe, so it has to be folgte instead of folgten...at least I think that is the way it should be written. Anyway, this sentence is very difficult to understand and I wouldn't exactly call this good style. After 'Abends' I would actually expect a relative pronoun referring to 'Abends' and not something referring to Ruhe. It is not impossible to do so but it is definitely hart to understand and as I said before, if the author wants the 'die' to refer back to 'Ruhe', it must be 'folgte' instead of 'folgten'. Actually the 'die' is fine because it is related to BOTH 'und im tiefen Frieden' AND 'in der Ruhe des tropischen Abends' so it is completely valid to refer to it with 'die'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 Actually I rechecked it and I have to admit that I did a mistake. The 'ihr' is actually a Personal Pronoun, because this 'ihr' here is in 3rd Person Singular and there is no third Person singular 'ihr' as far as Possessive Pronouns go. So it actually has to be a Personal Pronoun. So the control question you can ask to find out what it is here is: Wem ist die Weise eigen? -->Ihr (could als be Mir / Dir respectively). So it has to be a personal pronoun....and 'ihr' is correct and not 'ihrer'. So the sentence is perfectly grammatical. But this is such a monster of a sentence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giomach Posted December 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 Completely solved! Your solution to the bit which particularly puzzled me could be expressed like this: alle jene, die sie in (in) der (the) ihr (to her) eigenen (unique) barbarischen (barbarian) Weise (ways) auf Erden geliebt hatte Thanks for taking so much trouble over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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