Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify the subject and predicate of a simple German sentence and recognize the basic verb position rule.

Lesson Explanation

Every complete German sentence has a subject (who or what is acting) and a predicate (what the subject does or is, including the verb): Der Hund bellt. (The dog barks — subject: “der Hund,” predicate: “bellt”).

A genuinely important structural feature of German that shapes the rest of this course: the conjugated verb in a simple main clause is ALWAYS in second position — not necessarily the second word, but the second sentence element: Der große Hund bellt laut. (“der große Hund” is ONE sentence element in first position, “bellt” follows in second position).

This principle is called the “verb-second rule” and is covered fully in the next lesson — it holds regardless of what occupies first position, which is a genuinely important difference from English word order: Heute bellt der Hund. (Here too, “bellt” stays in second position, even though “heute” — a time expression — now occupies first position instead of the subject).

A main clause must also be grammatically complete — a sentence with no conjugated verb is not a complete main clause, but merely a fragment.

Practice Questions