Breakdown of Die Königin hasst die Cousine und deren Ehemann.
und
and
die Cousine
the cousin (female)
der Ehemann
the husband
die Königin
the queen
Questions & Answers about Die Königin hasst die Cousine und deren Ehemann.
Why do we use deren here instead of ihren?
If the sentence used ihren Ehemann, it would be heavily ambiguous. Because both die Königin and die Cousine are feminine, ihren could mean the queen hates her own husband, or the cousin's husband. Using the demonstrative possessive deren points directly to the most recently mentioned person, making it perfectly clear that she hates the cousin's husband.
Why is the pronoun specifically deren and not dessen?
The demonstrative possessive pronoun must match the gender and number of the possessor. Because it refers back to die Cousine, which is a feminine singular noun, we need the feminine genitive form deren. If the possessor were masculine or neuter (like a brother or a child), you would use dessen instead.
The husband is the direct object being hated. Why doesn't deren get an accusative ending like ihren would?
This is a great perk of using dessen and deren: they never change their endings to match the noun that follows them. While a normal possessive article like ihr- must decline to match the masculine accusative Ehemann (becoming ihren), deren is a fixed genitive pronoun. It literally acts as "of her" or "of that one" and stays exactly as it is regardless of the case of the following noun.
Since deren doesn't change its ending, is Ehemann still considered to be in the accusative case here?