Re: The Shift of Antecedent Prepositions to Suffixes ????

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:06:30 +0100, Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> wrote:
> I think that's one of the coolest things about German
> grammar, adverbial postpositions like 'darüber' and
> 'herunter'. Why settle for a boring, simple sentence
> like: 'der Ball rollt unter den Tisch', when you can
> say something really cool like: 'der Ball rollt den
> Tisch hinunter'?
Because I like being able to say both! They *do* mean different
things, you know.

"Der Ball rollt unter den Tisch" means "the ball rolls under the
table", or more literally, "the ball rolls to underneath the table",
since the accusative after the preposition indicates a destination.

"Der Ball rollt den Tisch hinunter" means "the ball rolls down the
table"; that is, the table is inclined, and the ball is rolling from a
higher part of the table to a lower part of the table. At no point
during this action, however, is it *underneath* the table.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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