German Verb Reference

This repository contains a German grammar and verb-reference book developed as part of my own German-learning journey. It brings together the rules, patterns, and examples that I have found most useful, with a particular focus on practical verb usage.

The book is an ongoing project. Corrections and constructive suggestions are welcome.

All 635 verb tables are maintained as structured YAML records. The grammar chapters and visual design remain in LaTeX because prose and print layout are already expressed well there. The build pipeline is:

verbs/verbs.yaml -> validation -> verbs/verb-list.tex -> GermanBook.pdf

verbs/verb-list.tex is generated. Edit verbs/verbs.yaml, then regenerate.

Requirements

• Python 3
• PyYAML (python-yaml on Arch Linux)
• latexmk and the LaTeX packages used by style/germanbook.sty

Build

make

This validates the YAML, regenerates verbs/verb-list.tex when necessary, and builds GermanBook.pdf. Building in the project root is intentional: the two imakeidx indexes then find their generated .idx files and apply style/germanbook.ist during the LaTeX run.

Other useful commands are:

make generate  # regenerate verbs/verb-list.tex
make check     # validate YAML and check that generated LaTeX is current
make test      # run the catalogue tests
make clean     # remove LaTeX build products

The underlying generator commands are also available as python3 scripts/generate_verbs.py and python3 scripts/generate_verbs.py --check.

Project layout

• main.tex — book assembly and ordering
• grammar/ — grammar-reference chapters
• grammar/comparative-and-superlative.tex — comparison rules, examples and 60 common adjective forms; cross-references the existing declension tables
• verbs/verbs.yaml — canonical source for all verb data
• verbs/verb-list.tex — generated LaTeX; do not edit directly
• verbs/introductions/ — explanatory notes included in the verb reference
• scripts/verb_data.py — schema validation and LaTeX rendering
• scripts/generate_verbs.py — generator and generated-file check
• style/germanbook.sty — shared book and verb-table presentation
• templates/new-verb.yaml — starter record for adding a verb
• tests/ — catalogue and generation regression tests

Editing verb data

Copy templates/new-verb.yaml into the appropriate chapter and alphabetical group in verbs/verbs.yaml, then edit the new record. The YAML retains the book's chapter and alphabetical-section ordering. Each verb separates:

• identity and English meaning;
• grammatical classification, auxiliary selection, and visual case style;
• person-keyed present, preterite, and optional subjunctive forms;
• role-keyed imperative forms;
• structured perfect, future, and pluperfect constructions;
• prepositional patterns with explicit government;
• related separable compounds with an unformatted split marker.

grammar.type is a broad verb classification and uses five values: regular, irregular, mixed, modal, and variable. Case government, reflexivity, prefix behaviour, and register do not belong in this label; they are either represented elsewhere in the record or left out of the compact heading.

An optional display_name overrides the bold table heading while lemma retains the unique entry name used for validation and indexing.

Table colours

grammar.style records the common object-case patterns in the meanings shown:

Style	Background	Pattern
acc	Blue	Accusative object or reflexive pronoun
dat	Green	Dative object
accdat	Purple	Both cases, together or in different common meanings
default	Grey	No Akk/Dat object pattern highlighted in the usual meaning
nom	Pink	Nominative complement of the auxiliaries sein and werden
modal	Yellow	Modal-verb chapter

Prepositional government does not determine the background. Count reflexive pronouns: sich erinnern is acc, whereas sich merken is accdat (sich in the dative plus an accusative thing remembered). Do not classify a verb as accdat solely because a free beneficiary can be added: etwas kaufen remains acc even though jemandem etwas kaufen is possible.

The printed KONSTRUKTIONEN block includes both bare object-case patterns and prepositional uses; the data field remains named prepositional_uses.

Colours describe selected common patterns, not every sense or an obligation to express an object in every sentence. Compact compounds do not inherit the stem's case government. The printed legend is in verbs/introductions/table-convention.tex; editorial decisions and references are recorded in docs/verb-case-colours.md.

The two explanatory callout boxes remain in verbs/introductions/, just as the longer grammar prose remains in grammar/.

scripts/import_existing_tex.py records how the initial YAML data was migrated from the former handwritten verbs/verb-list.tex. It is retained as migration history and is not part of the normal editing workflow.

The November 2026 linguistic review and its validation scope are documented in docs/verb-audit-2026-11.md.