Sunday, September 24, 2023

Was machen die Elefanten mit den großen Stoßzähnen?

Lately, I've been working on the German Duolingo skills under the heading "Describe the Berlin Zoo, discuss volunteer work."  A few times over the last month or so, I've gotten the sentence "Was machen die Elefanten mit den großen Stoßzähnen?" which I translated as "What do the elephants with the large tusks do?" but which Duolingo notes can also be translated as "What do the elephants do with the large tusks?"


I found it interesting that, while ostensibly translations of the same German sentence, "What do the elephants with the large tusks do?" and "What do the elephants do with the large tusks?" have different meanings and that these different meanings depend entirely on the placement of the prepositional phrase "with the large tusks."

In "What do the elephants with the large tusks do?" the prepositional phrase acts as an ablative of description because it immediately follows a noun, but in "What do the elephants do with the large tusks?" it acts as an ablative of instrument because it follows a verb.

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To-day, I also reached a 3,652-day streak, which means I've done daily Duolingo lessons for ten years.