Word
Der berüchtigte Pirat soll den Schatz vergraben haben.
Meaning
The notorious pirate is said to have buried the treasure.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Der berüchtigte Pirat soll den Schatz vergraben haben.
haben
to have
sollen
should / ought to
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Schatz
the treasure; darling
Questions & Answers about Der berüchtigte Pirat soll den Schatz vergraben haben.
Why is the modal verb soll in the present tense if the action happened in the past?
We use the present tense soll because the rumor or claim exists right now (he is said to). The past nature of the actual burying is shown by the perfect infinitive at the end of the sentence: vergraben haben (to have buried).
How exactly does the perfect infinitive vergraben haben work here?
Normally, a modal verb like sollen kicks the main verb to the end of the sentence in its bare infinitive form. To talk about a completed past action with a modal, we use the perfect infinitive, which consists of the past participle (vergraben) plus the infinitive of its helping verb (haben).
Is vergraben in vergraben haben the infinitive or the past participle? They look identical!
It is the past participle here. Because vergraben has the inseparable prefix ver-, it does not get the normal ge- prefix. Since it is a strong verb that keeps its stem vowel, the infinitive and the past participle happen to be exactly the same word.
As a quick refresher, why does the adjective berüchtigte end in just -e?
Der Pirat is the masculine subject in the nominative case. Because we are using the definite article der, the adjective gets the weak ending, which is simply -e for all singular nominative nouns.