Breakdown of Er wacht nicht auf und wir erschrecken ihn nicht.
er
he
und
and
wir
we
nicht
not
ihn
him
aufwachen
to wake up
erschrecken
to startle
Questions & Answers about Er wacht nicht auf und wir erschrecken ihn nicht.
I thought erschrecken meant "to get a fright", but here it means "to startle". How does that work?
Erschrecken is actually two different verbs depending on how you use it! When it means "to get a fright" (intransitive), it is a strong verb with vowel changes in the present tense (like er erschrickt). But when it means "to startle someone else" (transitive), it takes an accusative object like ihn and behaves as a completely regular verb. Here, we are doing the startling, so it is the transitive version.
Why is the first nicht placed right before auf?
The verb in the first clause is the separable verb aufwachen. When negating the overall action of a separable verb, nicht moves to the end of the clause but must sit immediately before the separated prefix (auf).
Why does nicht come after ihn in the second half of the sentence?
When negating an entire clause, nicht usually goes as far to the end as possible. It will always be placed after known direct pronoun objects like ihn. Since there is no separable prefix at the end of the second clause for it to step in front of, nicht takes the absolute final position.
Since the current lesson is about the present participle (Partizip I), could we combine these clauses using a participle like nicht aufwachend?
While you might be tempted to literally translate an English "-ing" concept, German rarely uses the Partizip I to link separate actions like this. Present participles are primarily used as adjectives or adverbs of manner to describe exactly how a simultaneous action is performed. To state two parallel facts, it is much more natural to link two standard clauses with und, exactly as shown here.
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