Combining Singular and Plural Nouns with 'und'

Question

Here I have two examples, I know that the second one is correct but don't know whether the first is also correct or not.

... mit dem sie ihre Abend und Wochenende verbringen können.

... mit dem sie ihre Abende und Wochenenden verbringen können.

My question is, if there are two nouns connected by 'und', then what is the verb's form following them (singular or plural). I have searched on the Internet but cannot find a firm rule because each site states different conclusion.

Your question seems unrelated to the examples. You might want to give a different example. In your examples, the subject is "sie". The verb "können" being plural indicates that the subject is a plural "sie". "ihre Abende und Wochenenden" is the object of the sentence and has no impact on the verb conjugation. The first example is wrong because "ihre" indicates plural and "Abend" is singular. That's a mismatch. — , Jun 10 '22 at 05:52
E.g. "Ihre Abende und Wochenenden reichen kaum für alle ihre Hobbies." would be an example where the enumeration is the subject. — HalvarF, Jun 10 '22 at 06:54
Fixed your umlauts. Please make an effort to use proper German spelling: even if your keyboard does not have, äöü i's not hard to insert. — Ingmar, Jun 10 '22 at 08:27
@Roland you have cleared my doubt. The examples come from an exercise in a textbook (Mut zur Lücke) where each of the bold word is left out, so I have to fill that in. Basically those two sentences are just set up to compare. — Le Nguyen, Jun 10 '22 at 08:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 10 '22 at 08:45

You are right about the second example:

... mit dem sie ihre Abende und Wochenenden verbringen können.

is indeed correct.

The first example:

... mit dem sie ihre Abend und Wochenende verbringen können.

is not correct for two reasons:

First, it is "der Abend" and the possessive pronoun ("ihr") has to reflect that: "... sie ihren Abend ...".

Second, and this is probably hard to understand for a non-native speaker: the difference between the two examples is that in one the singular is used, in the other the plural. In singular the "Wochenende" needs an article. Here is the corrected phrase:

... mit dem sie ihren Abend und das Wochenende verbringen können.

I cannot quote any rule or source for that, but without the article it just "sounds wrong". I suppose that the possessive pronoun already implies the article (a case of the so-called "Nullartikel") and this is the reason why it can foregone, whereas "Wochenende" still needs the article because it is not covered by the "ihr".

If you wouldn't use the possessive pronoun both nouns would need an article:

... mit dem sie den Abend und das Wochenende verbringen können.

To me the reasoning for requiring the 'das' in 'ihren Abend und das Wochenende' is that without it the 'ihren' would refer to both, but it cannot match the gender of a male and female word simultaneously. — planetmaker, Jun 10 '22 at 13:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 10 '22 at 11:10

0

If you want to connect two noun(s) via "und", each group comes with its article. If the articles match up, you can skip the second one, because the first one will carry over.

If they DON'T match because one is singular, the other is plural or one is masculine and the other is feminine, then you can't skip anything.

... wo sie ihre Tage (pl) und [ihre] Abende (pl) verbringen können. (can be skipped)
... wo sie ihren Tag (m) und ihre Nacht (f) verbringen können. (no skipping)

answered Jun 10 '22 at 11:10

Emanuel

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I wonder if you read the title only or the body of the question, as well. – Björn Friedrich Jun 10 '22 at 13:01
@BjörnFriedrich I read both and also the comments under it, which you seem to not have read. OP obviously wanted to know about connecting the nouns and just didn't know how to phrase it properly. Their doubts had nothing to do with the verb. Please verify and remove the downvote. – Emanuel Jun 10 '22 at 13:27

Combining Singular and Plural Nouns with 'und'

2 Answers2