Breakdown of Wir müssen herausfinden, wer den Brief geschrieben hat.
haben
to have
wir
we
wer
who
schreiben
to write
müssen
to have to, must
der Brief
the letter
herausfinden
to find out
Questions & Answers about Wir müssen herausfinden, wer den Brief geschrieben hat.
Does herausfinden literally mean finding something out in a physical direction?
The prefix heraus- normally indicates physical movement out of an enclosed space and towards the speaker (her- = towards the speaker, aus- = out). However, in herausfinden, it is used figuratively to mean "to discover" or "to figure out"—very much like the English phrase "to find out."
Why isn't the separable prefix heraus- separated from the verb here?
Because of the modal verb müssen (must / have to). Modal verbs push the main verb to the end of the clause in its full, unseparated infinitive form. If you used it without a modal verb, the prefix would split off and go to the end: Wir finden es heraus (We are finding it out).
Why is the conjugated verb hat placed at the very end of the sentence?
The phrase wer den Brief geschrieben hat is an indirect question. Indirect questions act as subordinate clauses, which means the conjugated verb (here, hat) must be pushed to the very end of the sentence, right after the past participle (geschrieben).
Just as a refresher, why is it den Brief instead of der Brief?
Brief is a masculine noun. In this clause, it acts as the direct object—it is the thing that was written—so it must take the accusative case, changing der to den. The subject doing the writing is wer (who).
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