Breakdown of Kannst du erraten, wer die Rose hinterlassen hat?
du
you (informal singular)
haben
to have
wer
who
können
can / to be able to
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
die Rose
the rose
hinterlassen
to leave behind
erraten
to guess
Questions & Answers about Kannst du erraten, wer die Rose hinterlassen hat?
Why does this sentence use wer instead of an indefinite pronoun like irgendwer or jemand?
In this sentence, wer acts as a question word to form an indirect question: 'Can you guess who...'. The word irgendwer means 'someone' or 'anyone'. If you wanted to use it here, you would need a conjunction like dass, resulting in Kannst du erraten, dass irgendwer die Rose hinterlassen hat? (Can you guess that someone left the rose behind?), which completely changes the meaning.
Why is the past participle hinterlassen instead of hintergelassen?
The prefix hinter- is inseparable in this verb. Verbs with inseparable prefixes do not add the -ge- prefix when forming the past participle. Because of this rule, the infinitive hinterlassen and the past participle hinterlassen happen to look exactly the same!
Why does the conjugated verb hat go at the very end of the sentence?
The phrase wer die Rose hinterlassen hat is a subordinate clause acting as an indirect question. It depends on the main clause Kannst du erraten. In German, subordinate clauses always push their conjugated verb (in this case, the helping verb hat) to the very end of the clause.
What case is wer in here, and why?
It is in the nominative case because it acts as the subject of the subordinate clause. The unknown person (wer) is the one who performed the action. The rose itself (die Rose) is receiving the action, so it is in the accusative case as the direct object.
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