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Could someone explain in the following examples, how the declension of "ein-" works?

  1. "die eines nach dem anderen einschlafenden Kinder"
  2. "die einer nach dem anderen durchstartenden Halbstarken"
  3. "die eine nach der anderen loskichernden Frauen"

If "ein-" is an indefinite article, "eines" would be the masculin genitive, "einer" would be the feminine genitive and "eine" could be the feminine nominative/accusative, which doesn't seem to be right.

What is "ein-" in that case?

tohuwawohu
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XST
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  • None of your example is idiomatic. I feel like they're even wrong. – Em1 Jul 13 '16 at 07:57
  • Source from Google Books: https://books.google.de/books?id=P1dbDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA278&ots=HaPq2zgu1k&dq=%22ein%20nach%20d%20ander%22%20struktur&pg=PA278#v=onepage&q=%22ein%20nach%20d%20ander%22%20struktur&f=false – XST Jul 13 '16 at 08:00
  • @Em1 how so? While the particular examples might be a bit odd, I don't see anything unidiomatic here, even though relative clause constructions (die Kinder, die eins nach dem anderen einschlafen/einschliefen,) are more common in spoken language. – Chieron Jul 13 '16 at 08:32
  • @Chieron Way more common! As part of the adjective it's quite weird, that's why it even felt wrong to me. – Em1 Jul 13 '16 at 09:47

1 Answers1

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In your examples, eine/einer/eines is an indefinite pronoun in nominative singular. It refers to the subject (die Kinder, die Halbstarken, die Frauen), so it is nominative and it refers to one person of the group, so it is singular.

die einschlafenden Kinder -> eines der Kinder
die durchstartenden Halbstarken -> einer der Halbstarken
die loskichernden Frauen -> eine der Frauen

Em1
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Tobi
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