Katzen

This article is a personal note on the entry Katzen on Klexikon during my learning of German. In this article, I will explain every words with their grammatic structure in the sentences, which might be wrong, so please don’t treat it as a page of an encyclopedia.

Overview

Katzen sind eine Familie der Raubtiere und gehören somit zu den Säugetieren. Es gibt sie auf allen Kontinenten außer in Ozeanien und in der Antarktis. Sie fressen fast nur Fleisch. Es gibt von ihnen viele verschiedene Arten, die sehr unterschiedlich aussehen. In der Natur leben bei uns nur Wildkatzen und Luchse.

Katzen sind eine Familie der Raubtiere und gehören somit zu den Säugetieren.

Word	Remark
Katzen	Plural form of “die Katze”, also refers to the Felidas.
sind	Plural form of the verb “sein”, agrees with the number of the subject.
eine Familie	Meaning “a family”, nom. and plural form of the term “die Familie”.
der Raubtiere	Meaning “carnivorous”, gen. and plural form, compound with “die Familie” into “die Familie der Raubtiere”. German usually use gen. and plural form of nouns to refer a kind.
und	Meaning “and”.
gehören	Meaning “belong to”.
somit	As “so-mit”, meaning “therefore, thus”. Respectively, “so” meaning “such”, “mit” meaning “with”.
zu	“zu” meaning “as”, requiring dative.
den Säugetieren	“den Säugetieren” is plural and dative form of “der Säuger”.

In fact, this sentence could be separated into two main clause:

Katzen sind eine Familie der Rauktiere.
Katzen gehören somit zu den Säugetieren.

Es gibt sie auf allen Kontinenten außer in Ozeanien und in der Antarktis.

Word	Remark
Es gibt	Meaning “there is/are”.
sie	Pronoun, meaning “they”
auf	Preposition, meaning “on the top of”.
allen	Adjective, dat. and plural form of “alle” here because auf requires a dat. appending if it is used to describe the static location, meaning “all”. In German, if an adjective has already modified the noun without an article existing, then the adjective will anotate the case of it.
Kontinenten	Meaning “continents”, plural form of “der Kontinent”.
außer	Meaning “except”.
in	Preposition, meaning “in”.
in Ozeanien und in der Antarktis	Meaning “in Oceania and Antarctic”.

Sie fressen fast nur Fleisch.

Word	Remark
Sie	Pronoun, meaning “they”.
fressen	Third-person and plural form of verb “fressen”, meaning “eat”, used for animals (for humankind, use “essen” instead).
nur	Meaning “only”.
Fleisch	Meaning “meat”, acc. form.

Es gibt von ihnen viele verschiedene Arten, die sehr unterschiedlich aussehen.

Word	Remark
Es gibt	Meaning “there is/are”.
von	Meaning “from … inside”.
ihnen	Meaning “them”, dat. and plural form of “sie”.
viele	Meaning “a number of”.
verschiedene	Meaning “different in essence”, acc. form of “verschieden” due to the plural noun “die Arten”. Prefix “ver-” means a kind of complete and fixed status in term “verschiedene”. And “schield” meaning “separate”. Totally, the term “verschieden” means a kind of definitive and essential difference. E.g., in biology, the difference between the species in Felidas is “verschieden”.
Arten	Meaning “species”, acc. and plural form of “die Art”, the inflection of the case of article is taken by the adjective “verschieden-e”.
, die	Meaning “that, which”, a relative pronoun.
sehr	Meaning “very”.
unterschied-lich	Meaning “difference”, “unter-schied-lich”. Prefix “unter” means a “inside, in a situation” here (or “under, below, less than” in other contexts). Postfix “-lich” equals “-ly” in English. Totally, the term “unterschiedlich” means the difference came up as comparison between the objects. E.g., in biology, the difference between the individuals of the specie Felis catus is “unterschiedlich”.
aussehen	Meaning “to seem like”, which is a separable verb (“aus-sehen”). Prefix “aus” meaning “from”, “sehen” meaning “see”. In German, the verb in a subclause should be put at the end of clause.

In der Natur leben bei uns nur Wildkatzen und Luchse.

Word	Remark
der Natur	Meaning “the nature”, dat. form of “die Natur”.
leben	Meaning “live”, third-person plural form of term “leben”.
bei	Locative preposition, requiring dative.
uns	Meaning “us”, dat. form of “wir” (we).
Wildkatzen	Plural form of “die Wildkatze”, meaning “wild cats”.
Luchse	Plural form of “der Luchs”, meaning “Lynx”.

Wenn man bei uns von einer Katze spricht, meint man oft die Hauskatze. Tatsächlich sind alle Katzen unserer Hauskatze ähnlich. Die Hauskatze wurde jedoch besonders gezüchtet und ist mehr oder weniger zahm.

Wenn man bei uns von einer Katze spricht, meint man oft die Hauskatze.

Word	Remark
Wenn	Conjunction, meaning “when”, leading the subclause of this sentence.
man	Infinitive pronoun, meaning “people” here, the subjet of the subclause.
einer Katze	Dative form of “die Katze”.
spricht	Third-person single form of term “sprechen”. In German, this is called “Nebensatzverbendstellung”. We put verbs at the end of the clause when is a subclause, or it involves infinitive structure, future / perfect participle with modal verbs. Here, “Wenn” (as a conjunction) introduces a subclause of the sentence, so we put the verb at the end of the clause.
meint	Similar to “denken”, meaning “to think, to treat, to refer to”, third-person single form of the term “meinen”. Here, “meinen” is put at the begining of the clause, and introduces the main clause of the whole sentence — without any conjunction or participle (unlike English). Because of the V2 rule (verbs are always the second element in the sentences) of German, and the first element of the sentence has been taken by the subclause begining with “wenn”, so the verb “meinen” must be at the begining of the main clause, as the structure `[C]₁, [V]₂ [S-O]` shown. Formally it equals to V-S-O structure, however it’s not ad hoc, but just a side-effect of the V2 rule of German.
man	The subject of the main clause.
oft	Meaning “often”.