What's the grammatical structure after a comma?

Question

I encountered this sentence and I don't understand the sentence structure of the part behind the comma.

In both sentences here, ...

Es gibt keine Möglichkeit, sein Leben zu retten. (There's no possibility of saving his life)

Er hofft, wo es keine Hoffnung mehr gibt. (He hopes where there is no hope anymore)

... , there isn't any Modal Verb at the second position (after the comma) to push the Second Verb to be at the end of the sentence. Then why are "Retten" and "Geben" not placed at the second positions, right after "sein Leben" and "es"?

Based on my limited knowledge, I assume the 2 sentences after the 2 commas should be:

• ... , sein Leben retten zu.
• ... , wo gibt es keine Hoffnung mehr.

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In some cases, after comma, I do see that the verb is placed at the second position as usual, so I don't know what's happening in the earlier instances:

Ich mag Geschichte, deshalb lese ich ein Buch.

Zuerst spielst du Tennis, dann spielst du Basketball.

What knowledge am I lacking? What's the name of the concept of the "grammatical structure after commas"? I searched on Youtube but couldn't find any explanation for my question. Please also share a site that thoroughly explains the concept.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Someone told you a wrong rule.

• There's nothing that “pushes” verbs to the end of the clause.

Forget about that idea of “verb pushers”. It leads you astray.

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In German, verbs stack at the end of the clause by default in reverse order than they do in English. Let me show you:

Du weißt, dass ich heute schwimmen lernen gehen will.

You know that I want to go learn swimming today.

The main clause however is special. It has an extra rule, which is the very last word order rule applied: You take the very last verb —the conjugated verb—, break off its separable prefixes (if any), and move it to second position.

Ich will heute schwimmen lernen gehen. ← will was moved to second position.

I want to go learn swimming today.

See how that works? And it's the same for your examples. The dependent clauses have their verbs at the end.

Es gibt keine Möglichkeit, … ← that's a main clause

…, sein Leben zu retten. ← that's a dependent clause

Er hofft, … ← that's a main clause

…, wo es keine Hoffnung mehr gibt. ← that's a dependent clause

See how easy you can now tell main clauses from dependent clauses. You can see that from the position of the conjugated verb. Let me turn those main clauses into dependent clauses:

Du weißt, dass es keine Möglichkeit gibt, sein Leben zu retten.

Du weißt, dass er hofft, wo es keine Hoffnung mehr gibt.

That last example showed you the limits of that principle however. If the clause only has two items, you can't tell apart second position from last position.

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Ich mag Geschichte, … ← that's a main clause.

…, deshalb lese ich ein Buch. ← that's also a main clause

That's something else you have to get used to: comma splices are a normal thing in German, even common.

Answer 2

Janka's answer is great. It's worth spelling out explicitly, though, that the reason that the clauses starting in deshalb and dann don't have verbs at the end is because they're considered their own independent clauses, and deshalb and dann are conjunctive adverbs rather than subordinating conjunctions like wo. Commas always come before dependent clauses, and subordinating conjunctions come at the beginning of dependent clauses.

The rules for commas with zu-infinitives are more complex; you have a comma*:

a. If the infinitive clause is linked to a noun in the introductory clause.

b. If the infinite clause begins with als, außer, ohne, statt, or um

c. If the introductory clause contains an anticipatory da-compound or es.

d. If the sentence could be misunderstood without the comma.

Examples:

• Der Spieler hat sich vorgenommen, noch aggressiver zu spielen. (The player decided to play more aggressively.)
• Es gibt nichts Besseres, als im entscheidenden Moment einen Fallrückzieher zu sehen. (There's nothing better than seeing a bicycle kick at a decisive moment.)
• Ich freue mich jedes Wochenende darauf, Real Madrid spielen zu sehen. (I look forward every weekend to seeing Real Madrid play.)
• Sie lief etwas langsamer, um ein Abseits zu vermeiden. (She ran a bit more slowly in order to avoid being offsides.)
• Er entschied sich nur zu sitzen und zuzuschauen. (He decided just to sit and watch.)

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* 11.1.5 from Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik by Rankin and Wells, 6e.

Answer 3

The structure of the period (and as a consequence the placement of the verbs) is dictated in German by the breakdown of said period in main clause versus subordinate clause; moreover, according to the type of subordinate clause we are dealing with, the position of the verb in said subordinate clause may vary. Furthermore notice that it is such subdivision in main + subordinate that rules the positioning of the comma, but the comma itself does by no means dictate the position of the verb in the subordinate clause.

Main clauses

In the main clause the verb always goes to second position, the first position being anything (also itself a subordinate clause).

Ich spiele Fußball, wenn ich glücklich bin

position one (P1) being the subject ich. But you could also say

wenn ich glücklich bin, spiele ich Fußball

P1 being the whole subordinate clause "wenn ich glücklich bin".

Subordinate clauses

The general rule (though with exceptions) is that in subordinate clauses the verb is placed at the end. Before a subordinate clause one generally places a comma, therefore the common structure would be

main clause with verb in P2 + comma -->, + proposition introducing the sub clause + clause + verb

In your examples:

Es gibt keine Möglichkeit, sein Leben zu retten

Er hofft, wo es keine Hoffnung mehr gibt

we follow exactly the aforementioned structure, hence they are correct according to the rules.

there isn't any Modal Verb at the second position (after the comma) to push the Second Verb to be at the end of the sentence.

Modal verbs are only one of the constructs where the accompanying verb must be placed eventually, but there are many others, in particular - as we are showing here - for subordinate clauses this is (almost) always the case. The absence of modal verbs doesn't therefore per sé exclude that a verb must be placed at the end.

Based on my limited knowledge, I assume the 2 sentences after the 2 commas should be: "... , sein Leben retten zu."

this can never be the case, why would you place zu after retten? Zu retten is the infinitive form of the verb retten, and "sein Leben zu retten" is a Konsekutivnebensatz, the rules explicitly stating that in such cases the verb (in its infinitive form) goes in last position keeping such infinitive form.

wo gibt es keine Hoffnung mehr.

This could be the case if the above sentence were a main clause; it being a subordinate clause the verb goes in last position, hence "wo es keine Hoffnung mehr gibt".

Ich mag Geschichte, deshalb lese ich ein Buch.

That's because the words deshalb/dann/daher/deswegen introduces another main clause by definition (see here).

Generality

We have stated that in subordinate clauses the verb must be placed at the end. This is true except whenever said subordinate clause in introduced by specific prepositions which, as exceptions, require the verb in the second position. These are exceptional prepositions/adverbs and must be learnt by heart (any attempt to classify them as sub-rules of sub-rules leads only to mental gymnastic whereby one could state the rule being A and the exception being B or completely viceversa, according to where we start). The classic case is "weil vs denn", both of which introduce causal subordinate clauses, with "denn" by definition turning the subordinate clause into the grammar rule of a main clause (see here).