Breakdown of Mein Chef lehnt es ab, am Wochenende zu arbeiten.
es
it
arbeiten
to work
der Chef
the boss (male)
mein
my
das Wochenende
the weekend
am
on the / at the
zu
to (infinitive marker)
ablehnen
to refuse
Questions & Answers about Mein Chef lehnt es ab, am Wochenende zu arbeiten.
Why do we need the word es in the first half of the sentence?
Here, es acts as a placeholder (often called a Korrelat). The verb ablehnen (to refuse or reject) requires a direct object. Because the actual 'object' being refused is an entire infinitive clause (am Wochenende zu arbeiten), we put es in the main clause to hold its grammatical place.
Could I just leave out the es and say Mein Chef lehnt ab, am Wochenende zu arbeiten?
In written and careful spoken German, you really should keep the es. Because ablehnen strongly expects an accusative object, dropping the es sounds slightly incomplete to native ears. The placeholder is standard when the object is provided by a following clause.
The verb is ablehnen. Why isn't the ab part of a zu-infinitive at the end, like abzulehnen?
ablehnen is the conjugated main verb here, not the infinitive. Since it's a separable verb in a regular main clause, the prefix ab gets kicked to the end of that clause (Mein Chef lehnt es ab). The infinitive at the very end of the sentence is just the verb arbeiten (to work), which becomes zu arbeiten.
Why do we use the dative am in am Wochenende?
Time expressions with the preposition an (like days of the week, dates, and the weekend) always take the dative case to answer the question 'when?' (Wann?). am is the standard contraction of an dem.
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