Breakdown of Wir sehen den Tätowierer die Vorlage auf die Schulter legen.
wir
we
sehen
to see
auf
on / to (down/up to a level)
legen
to lay / to put (flat)
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Tätowierer
the tattoo artist
die Vorlage
the template
die Schulter
the shoulder
Questions & Answers about Wir sehen den Tätowierer die Vorlage auf die Schulter legen.
Why is there no zu before legen in this sentence?
Because sehen is a verb of perception (like hören or fühlen). Just like in English we say 'We see him lay...' instead of 'We see him to lay...', these German verbs take a bare infinitive without zu. The infinitive legen gets pushed to the very end of the sentence.
Why is it den Tätowierer (accusative) if he is the one doing the laying?
Because grammatically, der Tätowierer is the direct object of the main verb sehen. We see him. Even though he is the person performing the second action (legen), he has to be in the accusative case here.
There are two accusative nouns here (den Tätowierer and die Vorlage). How do we know which one is doing the action?
German word order rules generally place the actor of the infinitive first, followed by the thing they are acting upon. So den Tätowierer comes before die Vorlage. Plus, context helps: a template cannot lay a tattoo artist onto a shoulder!
Why is it auf die Schulter (accusative) instead of auf der Schulter (dative)?
The verb legen (to lay or put) describes an action that moves something to a new location. When two-way prepositions like auf describe a movement towards a destination (onto the shoulder), they take the accusative case. If the template were already resting there, you would use the dative (auf der Schulter liegen).
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