5. Prepositions

Prepositions

5

PREPOSITIONS are a small set of little words which typically occur before a noun phrase and help to link it to the rest of the sentence. The resulting PREPOSITIONALPHRASES frequently express notions of time, place and direction, and they often depend on a preceding noun, adjective or verb:

Seit zwei Jahren lernt William Deutsch. William has been learning German for two years. Ute wohnt in einem alten Haus am Waldrand. Ute lives in an old house on the edge of the forest. Um halb acht gehen wir ins Fitness-Studio. We’re going to the gym at half past seven. Wir freuten uns sehr über seinen Besuch. We were delighted at his visit.

In German, the NOUNPHRASE following each preposition is in a particular CASE – the preposition governs a case. Prepositions are never followed by the nominative case. Most are followed by the dative or accusative; prepositions governing the genitive are confined to formal language. One important group of common prepositions is followed by the accusative or dative case, with variations in meaning.

Prepositions are troublesome for the learner because they have so many meanings and often lose their ‘normal’ meaning when they are part of a stock expression – as in English. In fact, German has rather less variety than English (check ‘get’ and all the associated prepositions and meanings in your dictionary!). This chapter explains the most important meanings and uses of the common German prepositions, arranged according to the case they govern:

prepositions with the ACCUSATIVE (5.1) prepositions with the DATIVE (5.2) prepositions with the DATIVE or the ACCUSATIVE (5.3) prepositions with the GENITIVE (5.4).

Prepositions may also join up with the prefix da(r)- to form PREPOSITIONALADVERBS such as dafür (for it) or darüber (over it, about it). These are explained in section 5.5. Many prepositions may themselves act as PREFIXES for verbs, e.g. durchfahren (to drive through), aufstellen (to set up) (see 11.6–11.7).