Wörtern

Wörtern is the dative plural form of the German noun Wörter, which denotes words as units of language. The base noun is das Wort; its plural nominative and accusative is die Wörter. In the dative plural, used after certain prepositions or verbs, the form Wörtern appears, typically preceded by a definite article: den Wörtern or mit den Wörtern. For example: mit den Wörtern (with the words), aus den Wörtern des Textes (from the words of the text).

Function and usage: Wörtern functions as a grammatical form rather than a separate lexical item. It occurs in sentences where the noun is in the dative case, such as after prepositions like mit, aus, or in constructions that require a dative plural. The meaning remains the same as the singular or plural noun Wörter, referring to language units overall, but its case marks its syntactic role in the sentence.

Etymology and related terms: The German word Wort (singular) stems from the West Germanic language family and has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as English word and Dutch woord. Wörtern, as the dative plural of Wörter, reflects standard German plural declension and the vowel change that affects the plural form in Wörter.

See also: Wort, Wörterbuch, Lexeme, Morphology.