mehrerer

Mehrerer is the genitive plural form of the German determiner and adjective mehrere, meaning "of several" or "of a number of." It is used to refer to multiple items in a non-specific way when the noun that follows is in the genitive case. In this use, mehrerer marks possession or association with several entities, typically in formal or written German.

Declension and forms

The word mehrere has several declined forms depending on case and article. In the plural: nominative and accusative are mehrere; genitive plural is mehrerer; dative plural is mehreren. Thus, the form mehrerer appears only in contexts where the noun is genitive plural, as in die Ergebnisse mehrerer Studien or die Ansichten mehrerer Experten. The dative plural form mehrere, written as mehreren, occurs after prepositions that require the dative case.

Usage and examples

- Die Ergebnisse mehrerer Studien wurden veröffentlicht. (the results of several studies)

- Die Ansichten mehrerer Experten beeinflussten die Debatte. (the views of several experts)

- Der Einfluss mehrerer Faktoren ist schwer zu isolieren. (the influence of several factors)

- Die Stimmen mehrerer Zeugen wurden berücksichtigt. (the voices of several witnesses)

Notes

mehrerer tends to appear in formal, written contexts such as academic writing or journalism. In spoken German, speakers often rephrase to avoid genitive constructions, or use the nominative/accusative plural mehrere when appropriate, depending on the syntactic structure. Related forms include mehrere (nominative/accusative plural) and mehreren (dative plural).