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I couldn't realize what could be the proper German translation of that pattern. If I use it like below, makes it any sense?

The basis of the specific grammar
Die Grundlage der spezifischen Grammatik

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  • Yes, the basis of can be translated as die Grundlage von. So yes, it makes perfect sense.
    – Burki
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 11:57
  • In this sentence Grundlage is fine, but generally, basis has different meanings. Translate the German translations of basis back to English and you'll see what I mean: linguee.de/englisch-deutsch/uebersetzung/basis.html
    – Iris
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 12:34

2 Answers 2

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The sentence you wrote is completely correct.

However, you wouldn’t say “spezifische Grammatik”, you would use a specifying article (diese Grammatik / dieser Grammatik in your case).

More possible translation include:
"Basis" would be for example the base of a triangle,
"Fundament" - the base of a building
"Sockel" - the thing a statue is placed on

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  • Hi and welcome to German Language Stack Exchange. Feel free to take a tour of the site. Visit the help center to learn more about how it works.
    – Jan
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 14:49
  • How do I type typographic apostrophes on a German keyboard?
    – gizmo
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 14:53
  • You can do Alt+0146 on Windows, or Alt gr + shift + n on some Linux distributions.
    – Jan
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 14:53
  • @gizmo maybe after you see the rest of my example you'll count on me, actually there was generalization, the rest of my case was: "Which of the following defines the basis of the specific grammar of all possible human languages."
    – Dragut
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 19:42
  • @Bergmann One very rare example for a nice use of "spezifisch" - Congrats
    – gizmo
    Commented Dec 16, 2015 at 22:10
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  • die Grundlage
  • die Basis
  • das Fundament
  • die Wurzeln

sind alles mögliche Übersetzungen für 'the basis'.

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