Indefinite pronouns II

German has a second tier of indefinite pronouns and determiners that goes beyond the basic jemand / niemand / etwas / nichts set. This tier includes the irgend- compounds (for unspecified persons, things, and places), the quantifiers mancher, mehrere, einige, sämtliche, beide, the place-adverb series überall / nirgendwo / anderswo, and the stand-alone pronouns einer / keiner / welche used when the noun is omitted. Each item in this group has its own declension pattern and range of meaning; choosing the right form and inflecting it correctly are the two main challenges at B2.

• irgend- compounds — use when the identity or location is unknown or irrelevant to the speaker. Irgendjemand (some person or other), irgendetwas (something unspecified), irgendwo (somewhere, static), irgendwohin (somewhere, directional), irgendein- (some … or other, used as a determiner before a noun).

• mancher — use to mean «some» or «many a», referring to an unspecified subset of a group. It functions as both a determiner (mancher Kollege) and a stand-alone pronoun (Manches ist schwierig.).

• mehrere / einige — use for «several» or «a few» with countable plurals. Both are always plural and take adjective-style endings.

• sämtliche — use to mean «all» or «the entire lot of», typically in formal or written registers. It is always plural and declines like a strong adjective.

• beide — use for «both» when referring to exactly two referents already known from context. It declines like a strong adjective in the plural.

• einer / keiner / welche as stand-alone pronouns — use when the noun is omitted because it is recoverable from context. welche is the partitive pronoun for mass nouns and plurals (equivalent to «some» in English). keiner is its negative counterpart.

• place-adverb series — überall (everywhere), nirgendwo / nirgends (nowhere), anderswo (somewhere else). These are uninflected adverbs; they do not take case endings.

irgend- compounds are formed by prefixing irgend- to an existing pronoun or adverb. The base word retains its own declension; irgendein- declines exactly like the indefinite article ein- with strong endings where the article has none (nominative masculine and neuter, accusative neuter).

mancher declines like the demonstrative dieser (strong endings throughout).

sämtliche, mehrere, einige, beide are always plural and take strong adjective endings. The table below shows sämtliche as a representative; mehrere, einige, beide follow the same pattern.

einer / keiner / welche as stand-alone pronouns — einer / keiner decline like dieser in the singular. welche / keine serve as the plural and mass-noun partitive forms.

• Using the article form instead of the pronoun form. When the noun is omitted, ein must take a strong ending. Brauchst du einen Stift? — *Ich habe ein. is wrong; the correct form is keinen (accusative masculine) or einen in a positive answer. For a neuter antecedent, the stand-alone form is eins, not ein.

• Leaving mancher or sämtliche undeclined. Both words must agree with their noun in case, number, and gender. *mit manche Kollegen is wrong; the dative plural requires manchen. Similarly, *trotz sämtliche Bemühungen must be sämtlicher Bemühungen (genitive plural).

• Missing welche as the partitive pronoun for mass nouns. English «some» has no direct German equivalent when used as a stand-alone pronoun. Learners often omit it entirely or use etwas instead. *Ja, es ist noch etwas da. is not wrong, but it shifts the meaning to «a little bit». The natural partitive answer is welche: Ja, es ist noch welche da.