Breakdown of Er sagt, der Chef, dessen Unterlagen wir haben, solle das Projekt delegieren.
er
he
haben
to have
wir
we
sagen
to say
der Chef
the boss (male)
das Projekt
the project
sollen
should / ought to
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
dessen
whose (m/n)
delegieren
to delegate
die Unterlagen
the documents
Questions & Answers about Er sagt, der Chef, dessen Unterlagen wir haben, solle das Projekt delegieren.
Why does the sentence use solle instead of soll or sollte?
solle is the Konjunktiv I form of the modal verb sollen. When reporting a command or instruction that someone else gave (an indirect imperative), German uses sollen or mögen in the Konjunktiv I. The original direct speech was likely a command like "Der Chef soll das Projekt delegieren!" We avoid sollte here because that is Konjunktiv II, which would express a subjective recommendation ("he ought to delegate it") rather than objectively reporting an instruction.
Why doesn't the reported speech start with dass and push the verbs to the end?
You can form reported speech with or without the conjunction dass. When you omit dass, the reported speech takes normal main clause word order. So instead of Er sagt, dass der Chef [...] das Projekt delegieren solle (conjugated verb pushed to the end), the sentence uses Er sagt, der Chef [...] solle das Projekt delegieren (conjugated verb in the second position, right after the subject der Chef).
How does the word dessen work here?
dessen is the genitive relative pronoun meaning "whose". It refers back to der Chef, which is a masculine noun. Therefore, the clause dessen Unterlagen wir haben translates exactly to "whose documents we have". If the boss were female (die Chefin), or if the noun were plural, the pronoun would change to deren.
Why is the subject der Chef separated from its verb solle by an entire clause?
In German, a relative clause almost always goes immediately after the noun it describes. Because the relative clause (dessen Unterlagen wir haben) gives more information about der Chef, it must be inserted right there, effectively splitting the subject from its verb (solle). The commas act like brackets, pausing the main idea, and once the relative clause ends, the rest of the main clause continues exactly where it left off.
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