Er sagte, er sei krank: the Konjunktiv I of the newspapers
CEFR B2 · part 1
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
The passive in the past and with modals: wurde gebaut, muss gemacht werdenTaking the passive into the tenses that were missing. In the Präteritum only werden…Die Tür wird geöffnet or ist geöffnet: the action and the stateTelling apart two sentences that look alike and mean different things. Die Tür wird…Er muss krank sein: when the modal is not an order but a guessThe modals' second job, the one the dictionary does not mention. Er muss krank sein is…Der gestern von uns gekaufte Tisch: a whole clause wedged inside the articleReading —and taking apart— the construction that makes German technical prose look…dennoch, folglich, hingegen: the connectors of written GermanThe connectors that make a text read as if an adult wrote it: dennoch for concession…bestehen aus, auf or in: when the preposition changes the meaningThe advanced tier of prepositional verbs: the ones with SEVERAL prepositions that mean…The rule, in three lines
One verb form with a single job: reporting what somebody else said without making it yours. Er sagte, er sei krank. Er habe keine Zeit. Sie komme später. It does not say the claim is false; it says he asserts this, not me. It is the language of newspapers, reports and courtrooms.
The usual slip. Failing to recognise it when reading, which is the serious one: a whole article in Konjunktiv I comes across as if the paper were asserting what it is only quoting. And the formal slip: when Konjunktiv I looks identical to the present —sie haben and sie haben— you switch to Konjunktiv II, sie hätten, so the difference shows. That is why texts mix the two forms with no warning.
Why it catches you out. English has nothing like it and shifts tenses instead —«he said he was ill»—, adding «allegedly» or «reportedly» for distance. So the whole idea that a verb ending can mean not my claim is new, and it is why German newspaper prose looks so strange at first.