Word
Das Kleid ist weder aus Baumwolle noch aus Seide.
Meaning
The dress is made of neither cotton nor silk.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Das Kleid ist weder aus Baumwolle noch aus Seide.
sein
to be
aus
from / out of (made of)
das Kleid
the dress
weder
neither
Questions & Answers about Das Kleid ist weder aus Baumwolle noch aus Seide.
Why is there no verb inversion after weder in this sentence?
Inversion only happens when weder or noch starts a full clause with its own subject and verb (like Weder habe ich Zeit, noch habe ich Geld). In this sentence, they are simply linking two prepositional phrases (aus Baumwolle and aus Seide). The main subject is Das Kleid and the verb ist stays in its normal second position.
Is there a missing verb here? The English translation says 'is made of', but the German just says ist.
You could add gemacht at the end (Das Kleid ist weder aus Baumwolle noch aus Seide gemacht), but it's not necessary. In German, it is very common and natural to just say something 'is out of' (ist aus) a certain material, leaving the 'made' part implied.
Why do we use aus here instead of von?
In German, the preposition aus (literally 'out of') is always used to describe the physical material something is constructed from. While English says 'made of', German effectively says 'made out of'.
Since aus is a dative preposition, why are there no articles before Baumwolle and Seide?