Clauses with separable prefix verbs Can you please help me structure these two clauses correctly? Which is correct? Thomas geht nicht zu Fuß, weil seine Freundin ihn zur Uni mitnimmt. Or... Thomas

Richard Buchli

Clauses with separable prefix verbs Can you please help me structure these two clauses correctly? Which is correct? Thomas geht nicht zu Fuß, weil seine Freundin ihn zur Uni mitnimmt. Or... Thomas geht nicht zu Fuß, weil seine Freundin nimmt ihn zur Uni mit. I want to say the second is correct because I know that separable prefixes go at the end of independent clauses. But does this change when combining two independent clauses into a single unified sentence? If you can give me a few examples of some similar sentences using this structure, I would be very grateful! Thank you!

Dec 6, 2014 8:02 PM

Answers · 3

The first rule is that a conjugated verb in a subordinate clause ("weil") must be at the very end (just like in Japanese). Therefore there's no need to split the prefix off, the prefix can stay where it is. Splitting only happens when the verb is in second position in a main clause. Main clause: Seine Freundin nimmt ihn zur Uni mit. Subclause: ..., weil seine Freundin ihn zur Uni mitnimmt. "..., weil seine Freundin nimmt ..." is wrong, because the verb is in the wrong position. Any other verb in this position would also be wrong.

December 6, 2014

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