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Ihm schlug das Herz bis zum Hals.

What is the grammatical function of "ihm" in this context? I know that literally "ihm" here means for him.

Tom Au
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Millen
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    You might be interested in learning that German hearts can do also other things using dative: Das Herz sank ihm in die Hose. Das Herz hüpfte ihm im Leibe. – Christian Geiselmann Jan 10 '18 at 11:29
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    siehe auch: https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/30944/understanding-ihm-in-so-fiel-ihm-das-herz-doch-eine-elle-tiefer-herab?rq=1 – Iris Jan 10 '18 at 13:15
  • @ChristianGeiselmann and in all the person is dative :-) – Millen Jan 10 '18 at 15:12
  • @Iris thanks very useful ... did n't find that before – Millen Jan 10 '18 at 15:13
  • In this case, "ihm" means something like "to him". I.e. it happened to him, that his heart "pounded up to his throat", i.e. very heavily. – Rudy Velthuis Jan 11 '18 at 18:49

4 Answers4

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This construct is a dative form which is also present in Latin, and not directly translatable into languages like English where the dative has almost vanished.

In languages that still have a living dative, this case can express

  • ownership - My heart is beating to the neck - Mir schlägt das Herz bis zum Hals
  • beneficiary or aggrieved party - Mir wurde das Auto gestohlen (The car was stolen from me)

Those are the two most important usages of dative (apart from receivership of something, which is the same as in English), beyond that there are some more you might want to look up in a German grammar, like dativus ethicus, iudicantis and finalis, .

tofro
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Das Herz (Subjekt) schlug ihm (Objekt) bis zum Hals.

So the grammatical function is simply "Objekt". The meaning would translate to something like

His heart was beating that hard so that he can feel it in his throat.

RoyPJ
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  • His heart is beating ... Sein Herz schlug .... ? – Millen Jan 10 '18 at 09:08
  • Sorry, of course it is past tense. – RoyPJ Jan 10 '18 at 09:14
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    The point is, that in the German sentence there is no statement about who is the owner of the heart. It is not »sein Herz«. It is »das Herz«. So in the English translation it should not be »his heart«. It must be »the heard«. Then it is clear, that the German »ihm« turns to »so that he* can feel«*, whereas there is not a single word about feeling in the German sentence. – Hubert Schölnast Jan 10 '18 at 09:22
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    I was only talking about the meaning, not the literal translation, because the question was only about the grammatical function of ihm. Nevertheless you are right. I did not think about this form hardly existing in English, although a construction like "it is pleasing to me" comes close. – RoyPJ Jan 10 '18 at 09:30
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    @HubertSchölnast I guess it is debatable which form of the dative this really is. There are several possible translations of mir here: my heart - dativus possesivus, I felt my heart beating - dativus iudicantis, I suffered from my heart beating - dativus incommodi. The real thing is probably a mix of all. – tofro Jan 10 '18 at 09:34
  • @tofro Looking at a number of similar phrases (Das Herz rutschte ihm in die Hose. Das Herz hüpfte ihm im Leibe) I feel inclinde to interpret this as simply dativus locativus (indicating a place), i.e. "Where did it do this? In him!" See also Dem Fenster ist die Scheibe rausgefallen, Der Fichte ist die Spitze abgebrochen. (Although, okay, especially in the latter two you may well see dativus incommodi too.) – Christian Geiselmann Jan 10 '18 at 11:31
  • @ChristianGeiselmann: »Die Lisa hat mir das Auto kaputt gemacht.« Wo siehst du da einen Ort? – Hubert Schölnast Jan 10 '18 at 16:16
  • @HubertSchölnast. Da sehe ich natürlich auch keinen Ort. Ich habe aber ja auch nicht behauptet, dass Dativ immer Lokativ ist; und du hast ein ganz anderes Beispiel genommen. Beim Verb kaputtmachen könnte man wohl von einer anderen Unterart des Dativs ausgehen als bei ven Verben abbrechen oder rausfallen. Wenn man mal die These ausprobieren möchte, dass die Dativart mit dem Verb recht fest verbunden ist. – Christian Geiselmann Jan 10 '18 at 16:55
  • Aber alle Beispiele haben gemeinsam, dass damit ein Nutznießer oder Opfer (allgemeiner: Empfänger) der Handlung gemeint ist, und genau das ist die Aussage meiner Antwort. – Hubert Schölnast Jan 10 '18 at 17:04
  • @HubertSchölnast Ja, es ist sicherlich ein fruchtbarer Ansatz, beim Dativ vor allem ein Opfer/Nutznießer-Verhältnis zu sehen. Funktioniert ja auch bei der Fichte und dem Fenster. Funktioniert jedoch nicht recht beim Herz das ihm zur Brust schlägt. Den Protagonisten hier als Opfer oder Nutznießer zu sehen, erfordert zu viel geistige Gymnastik. Eher ist es hier doch ein Lokativ. Und wenn man eine Lokativfunktion schon mal zulässt für den Dativ, dann kann man sie auch bei Fichte und Fenster sehen. (Das soll nicht heißen, du hast unrecht. Es bieten sich einfach mehrere Interpretationen an.) – Christian Geiselmann Jan 11 '18 at 11:08
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You often find personal pronouns in dative case in German sentences, that are hard to translate into English, because there is a grammatical feature in German, that doesn't exist in English. Here are some other examples:

Das Buch gefällt mir.
The book likes me? What?
I like this book. (Ich mag dieses Buch.)

Der Hut flog ihm vom Kopfe.
The hat flew him? from the head?
The wind blew the hat from his head. (Der Wind blies den Hut von seinem Kopf.)

Das Herz schlug ihm bis zum Hals.
The heard beat him to the neck???
His heart was thumping. (Sein Herz pochte.)

This personal pronoun in dative case marks the receiver (beneficiary, victim) of the action.

The book is the subject, it does something. It pleases/suits. (There is no one-to-one translation of gefallen in English, that can be used the same way.) The dative object tells us, who is the person, that receives what the book is emitting.

In the second example the pronoun doesn't mark the owner of the hat. The man could also have worn a strangers hat. But the man was the victim of whatever made the hat to fly away (it was probably the wind).

In the last example, it is obviously his heart that was beating, but this is not what this pronouns says. The sentence does not say "his heart is beating". Is literally says

A heart is beating, and he can feel this heartbeat in his neck.

So, here again the pronoun doesn't talk about ownership. It tells us who is the victim (i.e. the person that recognizes the heartbeat)

Also the sentence from your other question:

Ihm blieb vor Schreck der Atem weg.

The pronoun ihm tells us who was suffering from being breathless. (Who was the victim of this action?)

Hubert Schölnast
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The whole phrase means, "For him, the heart was beating into the throat.

In English, we would say, "His heart was beating into the throat."

But German doesn't use this construction for this, and similar, phrases. So they would use "ihm" where we would use "his"

Tom Au
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