German Question

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I know. I was taking the future tense out of it to see if the ordering of the other three auxiliaries in Ser Clegane's sentence would still be grammatical without the future verb's influence. It sounds like the answer is yes?

Der Euro muss eingeführt worden sein. If it's this what you mean then the answer is yes, yes.

The new hypothesis is that the order is as follows:

3)
Future
----Modal A
Perfect
----Modal B
Passive

This predicts that the future will always occur higher in the structure than any other auxiliary,

Since the future is always with werden, the answer is yes. Der Euro wird kommen, pflegte Helmut Kohl zu sagen.

and the passive will always occur lower.

Since the passive is also built with werden, the passive werden goes to the end. Der Euro wird eingeführt werden.

Modals and perfective auxiliaries may occur in either order relative to each other, but the difference in ordering will imply a difference in meaning. It would still be very unlikely, of course, to find all four types of auxiliaries in the same clause. Looking through Centurio's suggested examples for various combinations of auxiliaries (post #10), everything seems consistent with this.

Sorry not sure about this.

Sentence 1: Der Euro muss eingeführt worden sein
----Modal
----Perfect
----Passive

CORRECT.

Sentence 2: Der Euro muss eingeführt werden
----Modal
----Passive

CORRECT.

Sentence 3: Er sagte, dass der Euro eingeführt worden sein muss / müsse
----Modal
----Perfect
----Passive

Perfect - passive - modal.
Your solution would be correct IF the sentence would be a main clause: Der Euro muss eingeführt worden sein.

Sentence 4: Sie müssen den Euro eingeführt haben
----Modal
----Perfect

CORRECT.

Sentence 5: Der Euro wird eingeführt werden müssen
----Future
----Modal
----Passive

Future - passive - modal.

Sentence 6: Der Euro muss (bereits) eingeführt gewesen sein
----Modal
----Perfect
----Passive? Another Perfect?

CORRECT.

I probably didn't properly realize that I used a different verb in the last sentence: eingeführt sein instead of eingeführt werden. That's why it's the exact same construction like sentence no. 1 in the exact same tense. I'm sorry, I think I involuntarily brought you on a wrong track.

(I'm not yet familiar with this exact construction. I'm used to the plusquamperfect or past perfect involving a preterite form of sein along with a past participle. Here it looks like we've got the infinitive of sein followed by the past participle of sein followed by a past participle. I'm guessing the influence of the modal required the first sein to be in infinitive, making a preterite form impossible, but I couldn't have predicted the result. I'm also unclear as to whether the two stacked sein's mean plusquamperfect, passive, or both. Regardless, it doesn't seem to contradict the above hierarchy)

The infinitive of sein is sein. There's only one sein, namely the Partizip Perfekt Passive (PPP) gewesen.

And for Ser Clegane's mega-sentence with all four auxiliaries: Der Euro wird eingeführt worden sein müssen
----Future
----Modal
----Perfect
----Passive

Well, if the modal is müssen, than it's clearly future - perfect - passive - modal.

One other question this raises for me is whether it's ever possible in a German sentence to have two different modals, one in each of the possible modal slots. I suspect it's not, but it would be very intriguing if it is.

You mean können and müssen? Ich werde Englisch können müssen. I will have to dominate English. Endlich wieder müssen können. Finally being able to pee again. But I agree these ain't real modals.

Ever tried these?
http://forum.wordreference.com/index.php
Grammar nazis a big part ...

http://www.babelboard.de/forum.php
A very dedicated, yet small germanophone community. I know there is somebody who will defnitely discuss that matter in English with you.