Eight ways to use the Partizip II in German

Learning how to derive the past participle in German is important but knowing how to use it is even more important. The Partizip II just like Partizip I serves a variety of purposes and forms the basis for several grammatical rules such as the formation of the Perfekt tense, Plusquamperfekt, adjectives, Futur II etc. Read on to find out.

As German Adjectives

As positive and negative adjectives, they can only be converted to nouns. They equally require an end-declension which can vary like all other German adjectives. This group of adjectives usually don’t have comparative and superlative forms. For example;

As Substantive Nouns of Adjectives

The past participle can equally be used as nouns of people with either the masculine or feminine gender. This category of german nouns have end-declension like adjectives with respect to the gender, preceeding article and the grammatical case they represent in the sentence. Just like every other noun, they are capitalized at the initials (first letter) irrespective of their position in a sentence. Some examples are;

Perfekt tense formation

In order to make a sentence in the perfect tense in German, the past participle of a verb is required together with the auxiliary verb haben or sein in their present tense. The auxiliary verb in this case is either conjugated in the second position while the Partizip II goes to the end or at the last position while the Partizip II is placed at second to last depending on whether the sentence is a Hauptsatz or Nebensatz. Some examples are;

Plusquamperfekt formation

While we conjugate the auxiliary verb for Perfekt tense in the present tense, the Plusquamperfekt is formed with the Präteritum of the auxiliary verb together with the Partizip II. Just like the Perfekt tense, the conjugated verb remains in similar position for the different types of sentences. See below!

Passive voice formation

The two types of passive voice are formed with the Partizip II of any verb together with their various auxiliary verbs- werden and sein. The auxiliary verbs are conjugated in the second position while the past participle is placed at the end of the sentence.

Recall that werden has two forms of Partizip II; geworden and worden but with respect to the passive voice in Perfekt tense, worden must be used.

Futur II formation

In order to form the Futur II tense, the Partizip II combines with werden in addition to either haben or sein in the order werden + Partizip II + haben/sein where werden becomes the verb conjugate. The choice as to whether haben or sein should be the supporting verb is dependent on the type of verb being either transitive or intransitive respectively.

Negative Subjunctive II formation

Another use is in combination with the subjunctive II. Normally, the subjunctive II is used to make wishes or express desires which is in a positive dimension but in this case, it is rather a negative indication of regrets. See examples below…

As German Interjection

The past participle of German verbs as well as that of English can equally be used to make exclamatory remarks otherwise known as interjection. This is illustrated below.