deklinierbares

Deklinierbares is a term used in linguistics and German grammar to describe words that can take inflected forms to indicate grammatical features such as case, number, gender, and definiteness. The concept helps distinguish parts of speech and their morphologically varied forms in inflected languages.

In German, the main parts of speech that are deklinierbar include nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners and numerals when they function in a way that requires inflection. Verbs are typically described as konjugierbar rather than deklinierbar, since they change form to express person, number, tense and mood. Non-deklinierbare words in German include many adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions, which do not change to reflect case or number in the same way.

Nouns decline for case and number; for example, der Mann (nominative singular) becomes des Mannes (genitive singular) or den Mann (accusative singular) and die Männer (nominative plural). Adjectives show different endings depending on whether they accompany a definite article, an indefinite article, or no article at all, reflecting the language’s strong, weak and mixed declension patterns. Pronouns also change form by case, such as ich, mich, mir, or du, dich, dir. Determiners and numerals can likewise be declined to agree with the noun they modify.

The term deklinierbares is often used in grammar descriptions, linguistic analysis, and language-learning materials to categorize word classes by their potential for inflection. It highlights how morphology shapes sentence structure and meaning in languages with rich case systems, while contrasting with items that remain invariant across syntactic contexts.

Usage varies by grammar tradition; in everyday language, speakers rarely refer to words as deklinierbar, but the concept remains a foundational tool for understanding German inflection and morphology.