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"Es war einmal eine alte Schweinemutter, die hatte drei kleine Schweinchen.".

By what grammatical rule causes die to mean 'her' in this sentence?

tryst with freedom
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  • Related: https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/29013/when-is-er-replaceable-with-der – Carsten S Nov 23 '21 at 10:29
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    "die" is very probably not an article here, but a relative pronoun. (Please add the complete quote to show that). – tofro Nov 23 '21 at 10:35
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    @tofro: My first thought was demonstrative pronoun; wouldn't a relative pronoun put the verb at the end?. In any case, it is hard to tell from what's given. This must be a duplicate several times over either way; there are probably lots of answers here talking about relative and demonstrative pronouns. – RDBury Nov 23 '21 at 11:34
  • Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't mean "her" here? – DonHolgo Nov 23 '21 at 12:21
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    @RDBury My guess is the original quote was "Es war einmal eine alte Schweinemutter, die hatte drei kleine Schweinchen.". Here, "die" is obviously a relative pronoun. Thus I was asking for the full quote. – tofro Nov 23 '21 at 13:04
  • that's right @tofro – tryst with freedom Nov 24 '21 at 07:16

1 Answers1

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Es war einmal eine Schweinemutter, die hatte drei kleine Schweinchen.

Here, "die" is the relative pronoun in the subclause (after the comma) that relates to the subject of the main clause ("Schweinemutter").

It actually doesn't mean "her", but rather "who". It translates as

There once was a pig mother who had three little piglets.

German "die" can be a bit tricky, because it can be an article, a demonstrative, or a relative pronoun. Here, it's the latter.

tofro
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