From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2024-07-14, Antonio Marques  wrote:   
      
   > Could you break down _Vielen Dank_ grammatically for us?   
      
   It literally means "many thanks".  Whereas the English noun only   
   exists in the plural (no such thing as expressing "a thank"), the   
   German one is a mass noun without plural, so the expression is in   
   the singular.  "Dank" is a masculine noun, so the -en agreement   
   indicates that the noun phrase is in the accusative case.  Clearly   
   it has been extracted from a sentence like "ich schulde Ihnen vielen   
   Dank" (I owe you many thanks) or such, but nowadays it's a fixed   
   expression.   
      
   Compare "guten Tag!", which is also an elliptical expression in the   
   accusative case.   
      
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
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