The object of the sentence
Hello
I would be grateful if someone could help with the following.
'I thought that the film was truly disappointing'.
Ich habe gedacht, dass der Film echt enttauschend war.
Why isn’t ‘der Film’ classed as the object of the sentence and hence ‘den' Film’ (in the accusative)? 'The film' is afterall, on the receiving end of the action ‘thought’ which I understood made it the object of the sentence and as it is a masculine verb, should hence be 'den' Film.
I know that this (should be) a very simple concept which I should have understood on day one, but unfortunately it continues to confuse me and I would be very grateful if someone could take the time to explain it to me.
Thanks so much
Gemma
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Answers · 5
3
Maybe it helps to think in terms of the concrete construction.
The subordinate clause is "dass der Film (echt) enttäuschend war" ("that the film was (really) disappointing"). The verb is "sein", the verb pattern is "X ist Y", and therefore X is the subject and must be in the nominative case. It's actually the same in the English subclause.
This is based just on the verb, and the verb in the subclause is "to be", and not "to think".
In constructions without the subclause, you can make "the film" the direct object of the verb: I thought the film (to be) disappointing = Ich fand den Film enttäuschend. Note that there's no verb pattern "X Y denken" in German, but there are "X Y finden" or "X für Y halten".
1
Very often, the form a word has to take in a sentence and the thematic role it actually fulfills will differ in German.
Here, "denken" initiates a subordinate clause which happens to need a subject, what you're saying is "that what? that the film was…" - I really can't think of any way to explain this without going into confusing details.
Anyway, a more natural way to put this is "Ich habe den Film echt enttäuschend gefunden", which should correspond to your expectations on objects as well (;
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