Modern German Grammar: A Practical Guide, Second Edition

85 Reporting other people’s words and claims

For reported speech the subjunctive is usually used (see 39 for Subjunctives I and II).

In what follows ‘speaker’ denotes the user of both spoken and written language.

Er sagt, er habe kein Geld/er habe angerufen.

He says he has no money/he phoned.

 See 39.4a (p. 97).

85.1 Questioning the truth of what someone said

There are several ways of implying that the speaker doubts the truth of what has been

said:

gesehen haben wollen ‘to claim to have seen’

angeblich ‘supposedly’

behaupten ‘to claim’

(a) wollen

 See 35.6b (p. 78) for this special use of wollen.

Der Alte will das Opfer zum letzten Mal gesehen haben.

The old man claims to have seen the victim for the last time.

(b) angeblich ‘supposedly’ adds a note of disbelief:

Der Angriff auf die Demonstranten war angeblich von der Polizei

ausgegangen.

The attack on the demonstrators was supposedly initiated by the police.

(c) behaupten can imply the speaker is not telling the truth:

Er behauptet, nichts (Alkoholisches) getrunken zu haben.

He claims to have drunk nothing (alcoholic).

(d) In order to imply severe doubts about the truth of what has been said, Subjunctive II

may be employed:

Er sagt, er hätte kein Geld/angerufen.

He says he has no money/he called (but I don’t believe it).

 See 39.6b (p. 100) for this use of the Subjunctive II.

85.2 Reaffirming the truth of what someone has said

tatsächlich ‘indeed’

wirklich ‘really’

eigentlich/in der Tat ‘actually/really’ (contrary to expectations)

85

Reporting others’ words