Breakdown of Die Forscher werten das gestern durchgeführte Experiment aus.
gestern
yesterday
das Experiment
the experiment
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Forscher
the researcher
auswerten
to evaluate
durchführen
to conduct
Questions & Answers about Die Forscher werten das gestern durchgeführte Experiment aus.
How would I rewrite this extended participle attribute as a relative clause?
To turn the noun phrase das gestern durchgeführte Experiment into a relative clause, you need to use the passive voice. This is because the past participle (durchgeführt) implies that an action was done to the noun. The transformed sentence is: Die Forscher werten das Experiment aus, das gestern durchgeführt wurde.
Why do we use the past participle (durchgeführte) here instead of the present participle (durchführende)?
In German extended attributes, the past participle acts as a passive or completed adjective. The experiment was conducted by someone else (passive). If you used the present participle (das durchführende Experiment), it would imply active voice, meaning the experiment itself is actively conducting something!
Why does gestern come between the article and the participle?
In an extended participle attribute, all the extra information describing the action (like the time word gestern) gets "sandwiched" between the article (das) and the participle (durchgeführte). You can think of the whole chunk gestern durchgeführte as one big, multi-word adjective modifying Experiment.
Why does durchgeführte end in -e?
When a participle is placed before a noun to describe it, it behaves exactly like a normal adjective and must take an adjective ending. Here, it follows the definite article das in the accusative case (neuter singular). Following the rules for "weak" adjective declension, it takes the ending -e.
Does having such a long, complex object change where the separable prefix aus goes?
No, the rule for separable verbs remains strictly in place. The conjugated main verb werten is in position 2, and its prefix aus gets kicked to the very end of the sentence. The entire extended object (das gestern durchgeführte Experiment) simply sits securely inside this "sentence bracket".
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