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

Philip Newton wrote:
 > On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:06:30 +0100, Steven Williams 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.


Dutch even has examples in which exactly the same preposition can be
used as a postposition, with a different meaning:

Ik loop in het bos (I'm walking in the forest)
Ik loop het bos in (I'm walking into the forest)

Hij reed op de weg (He drove on the road)
Hij reed de weg op (He drove onto the road)

Het hert rende door het bos
     (The deer ran through the forest (not exiting from it))
Het hert rende het bos door
     (The deer ran through the forest (reappearing on the other side))


And in some cases, the meaning does not change:

Ze kwam uit haar bed (She came out of her bed)
Ze kwam haar bed uit (ditto)


René

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