German - Conjunctive I / Reported Speech / Konjunktiv I / Indirekte Rede / Forms - Grammar - longua.org

Reported Speech / Indirekte Rede

Use of Conjunctive I in the Reported Speech:

The "Indirekte Rede" / Reported Speech describes what someone says about someone else. The transfer of something that was said.
Therefore Konjunktiv I / Conjunctive I is used in German, sometimes depending on the form of the verb also Konjunktiv II / Conjunctive II or the Conjunctiv II replacement form with the auxiliary "würde".

Formation of the "regular and irregular forms" of the Conjunctiv I

How to form the Conjunctive I / Konjunktiv I?
- Use the verb stem an cut the -en.
- Add the personal endings:
-e, -(e)st, -e, -en, -(e)t, -en
e.g. ich gehe, du geh(e)st, er/sie/es gehe, wir gehen, ihr geh(e)t, sie/Sie gehen

Which form is used in the Reported Speech?

Compare with the present:
ich gehe, du gehst, er/sie/es geht, wir gehen, ihr geht, sie/Sie gehen
If the forms of the conjunctive I and the present are the same, use the form of the conjunctive II.
e.g. ich ginge, du ging(e)st, er/sie/es ginge, wir gingen, ihr ging(e)t, sie/Sie gingen
Sometimes the forms of the conjunctive II and the Präteritum / preterit are the same, as well.
In this case, you can substitute them by the "würde + infinitive" form.

The following paradigm appears:

	personalpronouns	conjunctive I	conjunctive II	"würde"
1st Person Singular	ich	-	ginge	-
2nd Person Singular	du		ging(e)st	würdest gehen
3rd Person Singular male	er	gehe	-	-
3rd Person Singular female	sie	gehe	-	-
3rd Person Singular neutral	es	gehe	-	-
1st Person Plural	wir	-	-	würden gehen
2nd Person Plural	ihr	-	ging(e)t	-
3rd Person Plural	sie	-	-	würden gehen
3rd Person formal	Sie	-	-	würden gehen

The Verb "sein" - to be with conjunctive I:

The verb "sein" - to be with its form "sei" is the only verb that is used with an own complete paradigm.

	personalpronoun	verb	-en
1st Person Singular	ich	sei	... -
2nd Person Singular	du	sei	... -(e)st
3rd Person Singular male	er	sei	... -
3rd Person Singular female	sie	sei	... -
3rd Person Singular neutral	es	sei	... -
1st Person Plural	wir	sei	... -en
2nd Person Plural	ihr	sei	... -(e)t
3rd Person Plural	sie	sei	... -en
3rd Person formal	Sie	sei	... -en

Examples:

Christian sagt, er habe nichts gewusst.
Sie meinte, sie komme heute später.
Der Polizist erklärt ihnen, sie müssten noch warten. (Konjunktiv II, da die Konjunktiv I-Form "müssen" die Indirekte Rede nicht eindeutig darstellt.)

Irregular verbs:

German - Irregular Verbs: List: a - b

German - Irregular Verbs: List: c - f

German - Irregular Verbs: List: k - m

German - Irregular Verbs: List: n - r

German - Irregular Verbs: List: s - sch

German - Irregular Verbs: List: se - st

German - Irregular Verbs: List: t - v

German - Irregular Verbs: List: w - z

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