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Valency and cases
and for certain verbs that also take an accusative object, e.g. sich etwas nehmen (to take something (for oneself)): Du widersprichst dir immer wieder. Darf ich mir eine Praline nehmen?
You constantly contradict yourself. May I take a chocolate (for myself )?
A reflexive dative pronoun is often used in German to indicate that a part of the body or article of clothing belongs to the subject of the clause (see section 8.4). In this kind of construction German rarely uses a POSSESSIVE DETERMINER, unlike English: Ich putze mir die Zähne. Wann hast du dir das Bein gebrochen?
I’m cleaning my teeth. When did you break your leg?
A very few verbs always have a dative reflexive pronoun, as well as an accusative object, e.g. sich etwas einbilden, sich etwas vorstellen, sich etwas vornehmen: sich etwas einbilden imagine sth. (unreal)
Das hast du dir nur eingebildet. You only imagined that.
sich etwas vorstellen imagine, visualize
Ich kann mir das sehr gut vorstellen. I can imagine that very well/visualize that very clearly.
sich etwas vornehmen resolve
Wir nehmen es uns fest vor. We are firmly resolved to do that.
8.3 Dative objects Some German verbs only have a dative object, and no accusative object (sentence pattern C): Sabine hilft mir.
Sabine is helping me.
Der Termin passt seinem Chef nicht.
The date doesn’t suit his boss.
It is necessary to learn verbs which are used in this way. The following are the most common: ähneln antworten begegnen danken dienen drohen einfallen entkommen
resemble answer meet thank serve threaten occur (e.g. thought) escape
folgen gehorchen gehören gleichen gratulieren helfen imponieren kündigen
follow obey belong resemble congratulate help impress fire, sack