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Meaning
The dog is sleeping.
Word for word: The dog sleeps.
States that a specific dog is asleep; used to describe what an animal or person is doing right now.
A simple main-clause statement: subject 'der Hund' in the nominative, finite verb 'schläft' in second position, present tense, third person singular agreeing with the singular subject.
Rules at work(6)
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Der Hund schläft.
In a main-clause statement the finite verb occupies the second position after the subject phrase.
In a German main clause the finite verb is always the second element. The first element can be the subject, but it can just as easily be a time expression, an object or a whole subordinate clause; whatever it is, it counts as one element and the verb follows it. This is why putting something other than the subject first pushes the subject after the verb.
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schläft
The verb takes the -t ending to agree with the third person singular subject der Hund.
The finite verb takes an ending that matches its subject in person and number. The endings for regular verbs in the present are e, st, t, en, t, en.
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schläft
The present tense describes an action happening now.
The present describes what is happening now, what happens habitually, and very often what is going to happen, since German uses the present with a time expression where English would use a future.
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Der Hund
The subject of the sentence stands in the nominative case.
The nominative marks the subject of the clause: whoever or whatever is doing the verb. It is also the case used after the verbs sein, werden and bleiben, so both sides of Das ist mein Bruder stand in the nominative.
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Der
The masculine nominative form der marks a specific, known dog.
Der, die and das change their form according to the gender, number and case of the noun. The full set of sixteen forms is the backbone of the case system, because most other endings follow the same pattern.
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der Hund
Hund is masculine, which determines the article form der.
Every German noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender is a property of the word rather than of the thing it names, and it decides the form of every article, adjective and pronoun that refers to it, so it has to be learned with the noun.
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Words(3)
- der
the
determinerA1definite
Appears twice: dative feminine 'der Wirtschaft' and nominative plural 'die Beschlüsse'.
- der Hund
dog
nounA1pl. Hundegen. Hundesstrong declension
- schlafen
to sleep
verbA1schlafen, schlief, hat geschlafenmit habenstrong