Breakdown of Meinetwegen brauchen wir keinen Sauerstoff aus der Flasche.
aus
from / out of (made of)
kein
no, not any
wir
we
brauchen
to need
die Flasche
the bottle
der Sauerstoff
the oxygen
meinetwegen
for my sake / for all I care
Questions & Answers about Meinetwegen brauchen wir keinen Sauerstoff aus der Flasche.
Does meinetwegen always mean "for all I care"? I thought it meant "because of me".
It can mean both! Literally, meinetwegen means "because of me" or "for my sake". However, in everyday conversation, it is very frequently used to express casual agreement or indifference, meaning "for all I care", "fine by me", or "as far as I am concerned". The context here shows the speaker does not mind going without bottled oxygen.
Where does the -et- in meinetwegen come from? Why not just say wegen mir?
In casual spoken German, you will actually hear people say wegen mir using the dative case. However, the standard formal way to combine wegen with personal pronouns uses the possessive stem (like mein-) plus a linking -et-, followed by -wegen. This creates the fixed words you are learning in this lesson, such as meinetwegen, deinetwegen, and ihretwegen.
Why does the verb brauchen come right after meinetwegen?
Even though meinetwegen is expressing an attitude or opinion here, it still functions as an adverbial phrase occupying the first position in the sentence. To satisfy the strict verb-second (V2) rule of German main clauses, the conjugated verb brauchen must immediately follow it, which pushes the subject wir into the third position.
As a quick refresher, why is it keinen Sauerstoff instead of just kein Sauerstoff?
Sauerstoff (oxygen) is a masculine noun (der Sauerstoff). Since it is the direct object being needed (or in this case, not needed) by the verb brauchen, it takes the accusative case. The accusative ending for masculine "kein-words" is -en, making it keinen.
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