Breakdown of Welcher Knochen liegt im Käfig?
liegen
to lie
im
in the (used with months) / in the (contraction of in + dem)
welcher
which (question word)
der Käfig
the cage
der Knochen
the bone
Questions & Answers about Welcher Knochen liegt im Käfig?
Why is the ending "-er" used on "welcher"?
Welch- acts just like der/die/das and changes its ending based on the gender and case of the noun it describes. Knochen (bone) is a masculine noun (der Knochen). Because the bone is the subject of the sentence (the thing doing the lying), it is in the nominative case. The masculine nominative ending is -er, giving us welcher.
How do we know "Knochen" means one bone and not multiple bones here?
The word for bone is the same in both singular and plural: der Knochen (the bone) and die Knochen (the bones). You can tell it is singular here by looking at the surrounding words. The verb liegt is singular (is lying), whereas the plural would be liegen (are lying). Also, welcher is the masculine singular form; the plural would be welche.
Why does the sentence use "im Käfig" instead of "in den Käfig"?
Im is a short combination of in + dem. The preposition in is a "two-way preposition", meaning it can take either the accusative or dative case. Because the bone is just resting in a fixed place (answering the question "where?"), we use the dative case (dem Käfig). If the bone were being thrown into the cage (showing movement to a new destination), we would use the accusative case (in den Käfig).
Why is the verb "liegt" in the second position when this is a question?
In German, questions starting with question words (W-questions) always keep the verb in the second position. Even though Welcher Knochen is two words, they belong together and count as one single "question block" in the first position. Therefore, the verb liegt stays firmly in position number two!
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