5.5 Prepositional adverbs

There are also a large number of other prepositions which govern the genitive, but these are restricted in the main to very formal, especially official and commercial language. The following are not infrequent:

angesichts der Kälte in view of kraft seiner Autorität by virtue of anlässlich ihres Todes on the occasion of längs der Straße along(side) bezüglich des Briefes with reference to seitens des Angeklagten on the part of hinsichtlich der Preise with regard to ungeachtet der Tatsache notwithstanding

Prepositional adverbs (sometimes called ‘pronominal adverbs’) are formed by prefixing da(r)- to a PREPOSITION, e.g. damit (with it), daran (on/at it). They typically substitute for preposition third person pronoun, except when the pronoun refers to a person (see 3.7). Compare:

Wir warten auf den Mann. → Wir warten auf ihn. We’re waiting for him. Wir warten auf den Computer. → Wir warten darauf. We’re waiting for it.

The pronoun es is not normally used after prepositions:

Er freut sich über das Geschenk. → Er freut sich darüber. He’s pleased about it.

The prepositional adverb is always used to refer to whole sentences:

Er ist in Paris.Anna weiß nichts davon. He’s in Paris. Anna knows nothing about it.

If motion is involved, separable prefixes (see 11.6) with hin- or her- are used rather than the prepositional adverb:

Sie erreichten den Tunnel und fuhren hindurch. They reached the tunnel and drove through it.

The prepositional adverb is often used to anticipate a following dass-clause or infinitive clause (see 8.7, 10.3 and 10.6):

Ich warte darauf, dasser mich anruft. I’m waiting forhim to ring me up. (literally: I’m waiting for it that he rings me up.) Sie sehnte sich danachGeorg wiederzusehen. She yearned to see Georg again. (literally: She yearned for it to see Georg again.)

An equivalent compound is formed with wo(r)- preposition, e.g. womit, wovon, worüber. This is used instead of preposition was (see 10.5):

interrogative pronoun

relative pronoun

Wofür benutzt man dieses Werkzeug? What do you use this tool for? Er hat gefragt, worüber wir gesprochen haben. He asked what we talked about.