Breakdown of Ich glaube, dass der verletzte Mann an der steilen Klippe verunglückt sein wird.
ich
I
sein
to be
der Mann
the man
glauben
to believe
an
at, on (vertical) / to (addressee) / of (in quantity/stock expressions)
dass
that
steil
steep
verletzt
injured
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
werden
will (future auxiliary)
die Klippe
the cliff
verunglücken
to have an accident
Questions & Answers about Ich glaube, dass der verletzte Mann an der steilen Klippe verunglückt sein wird.
Why does the sentence use wird if he already had the accident in the past?
This uses the Futur II (Future Perfect) tense. While it literally translates to "will have," German speakers frequently use it to express a strong assumption or probability about something that happened in the past. Here, it means the speaker assumes he "probably had an accident" or "must have had an accident."
Why is it sein wird instead of haben wird at the end of the sentence?
The verb verunglücken (to have an accident) involves a change of condition, so it builds its perfect tenses with sein rather than haben. Just like you would say er ist verunglückt in the normal conversational past, the Futur II uses sein as the helper verb, making it verunglückt sein wird.
How does the word order work with three verbs at the end (verunglückt sein wird)?
Because this is a subordinate clause starting with dass (that), the conjugated verb is pushed to the very end. The conjugated verb here is wird. It goes immediately after the rest of the Futur II verb block, giving you the past participle (verunglückt) + the infinitive helper (sein) + the conjugated verb (wird).
Why do we say an der steilen Klippe? Isn't Klippe feminine?
Yes, die Klippe is feminine! However, an is a two-way preposition. Because it describes a static location here (where the accident took place, answering "where?"), it forces the noun into the dative case. In the dative case, the feminine article die changes to der, and the adjective steil gets the standard dative ending -en.
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