to be subject to / to dare
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to be subject to
To be subordinate to a person or institution in a hierarchy and have to follow their instructions.
Alle Abteilungen unterstehen direkt dem Geschäftsführer.
All departments are directly subject to the managing director.
'Unterstehen' is an inseparable verb. The prefix 'unter-' is not stressed and remains firmly attached to the verb in all sentence forms.
Er unterstand früher einem anderen Vorgesetzten.
He used to be subject to a different supervisor.
The two meanings are easy to distinguish: the meaning 'to be subordinate' is used without a reflexive pronoun. The meaning 'to dare something' is always reflexive, so 'sich unterstehen' (to dare).
Die Marketingabteilung untersteht der Geschäftsführung.
The marketing department is subject to management.
In the meaning 'to be subordinate,' the person or institution one is subordinate to is always in the dative. The structure is therefore: subject + unterstehen + dative object.
Als Praktikant unterstand er dem Projektleiter.
As an intern, he was subject to the project manager.
The expression 'sich unterstehen' is used almost exclusively as a warning or threat in the imperative. It is often followed by an infinitive construction with 'zu'.
Untersteh dich, ohne meine Erlaubnis wegzugehen!
Don't you dare leave without my permission!
to impute / shelter / subordinate
'unterstellen' and 'unterstehen' both have to do with a hierarchy. The important difference is the direction. With 'unterstellen', you say that someone or a department is assigned to another leadership. So it describes the decision or action from the outside. 'unterstehen' describes the state: someone is subordinate to a person or office and must follow their instructions. The words are easy to confuse because they look similar. Memory aid: you place a department under someone with 'unterstellen'; after that, it is subject to that person with 'unterstehen'.
Im Büro untersteht die Abteilung einem neuen Leiter.
In the office, the department is subject to a new manager.
Die Firma unterstellt das neue Team direkt der Geschäftsleitung.
The company places the new team directly under the management.