Mnemonics for cases after German prepositions

[yong321]

My mnemonics to remember German prepositions with accusative (durch, bis, für, ohne, entlang, gegen, um) and those with dative (bei, mit, seit, aus, zu, nach, von):

The ones with accusative have vowels more closed than the ones with dative, which mostly have /a/ in the sound. The only true exceptions are mit and zu. Even o in von is more open than o in ohne.

Two-way-prepositions can have both. The word dative sounds like sedative, so the meaning is "static". The opposite (i.e. accusative) is then "dynamic".

If we further inquire about the closeness of sound for accusatives and openness for datives, consider the fact that in many cases, the word for "here" is more closed than that for "there" in various languages:
accusative - direct object - close in distance to the speaker: here, hier, ici, aquí, 这里 (zhe4li3)
dative - indirect object - far in distance to the speaker: there, da, là, allá, 那里 (na4li3)
It's understandable that when speaking about something farther away, a more open sound is slightly easier to hear and sounds louder.

Having said that, I must limit these "rules" to mere mnemonics because I don't know if there's any semanto-etymological research to support them.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Mine was just that it's the "opposite" - vowel=consonant and vice versa: the "durch, für, gegen..." group starts with d (as does direct object) - OK, accusative. And the "aus, bei, mit..." (and indirect object) is dative.

Whatever the mnemonics, they may help in the short run (e.g. when composing letters, writing exams and so on), but after a few hundred sample sentences (and few hundred hours with the language), they should be rather automatized anyway.

[Iversen]

jeff_lindqvist implicitely assumes that all learners have learnt the rote mnemonics "durch für gegen ohne um" (acc). "aus bei mit nach von zu" (dative) and "an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen" (acc./dative) by heart, and I did, but we can't assume that these still are used in the modern schools - but maybe it would be a good idea to revive them if they have been squeezed out of the curricula.

[Jbean]

I last studied German in 1978 and I can still recite those two lists instantly!

[Cainntear]

The dative case classically refers to a recipient -- it comes from the verb "to give" in Latin (the root of English donate), so it's the "given to".

If we look in terms of activity:
He gave it to her.
He is very active, because he's the one doing everything -- the one with the most agency.
It is not very active, being something of a passive participant, but is heavily affected by the action, having changed state (it used to be in my posession, but now it's in hers.
Her is a passive recipient, and isn't very heavily affected. (She doesn't change state unless what was given to her is something very special indeed.)

So the nominative typically indicates high "agency", the accusative high "affectedness" and the dative both low agency and low affectedness. There are, of course, exceptions.

Edit:
Note also that these ideas of agency and affectedness are also the reason between the haben/sein distinction in the Perfekt.
Wherever "sein" is used, this means that the subject of the sentence has high affectedness -- there's no direct object, because the subject is the logical object. (e.g. Ich bin nach Schottland geflugen -- I'm the one whose state has changed: I'm in Scotland (but not yet, soon. Christmas is coming))
This relates to the added "be" in English passives -- in a passive the grammatical subject is the logical direct object (has high affectedness) and isn't the logical subject (has low agency).
e.g. I was shot. (he shot me). You have been warned! (I have warned you)

[alexkelbo]

My mnemonics to remember German prepositions ...

Very nice observations! It never occurred to me that there were at least some regularities to prepositions.

[aokoye]

jeff_lindqvist implicitely assumes that all learners have learnt the rote mnemonics "durch für gegen ohne um" (acc). "aus bei mit nach von zu" (dative) and "an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen" (acc./dative) by heart, and I did, but we can't assume that these still are used in the modern schools - but maybe it would be a good idea to revive them if they have been squeezed out of the curricula.

I know people who teach German in university settings and at least from my tiny sample size, some of the other university websites I've perused, and talking to people younger than me who were at the German program I did in the summer (who were from various universities) it appears to still be used, at least at the college/university level in the US. But yeah - I can recite them by heart because I learned the to the tunes of songs, though I didn't learn the two way prepositions with one. So while I know the rule in terms of when two way prepositions dative and when there are accusative, I can't just rattle them off like the others.

An easier, and more accurate, way to figure out if it's being used or not would be to look at pedagogical tools for German as a foreign language teachers.

[marros]

Here are mnemonics from the book "Präpositionen" (Hueber):

Dativ:

Von AusBeiMit nach SeitVonZu
fährst immer mit dem Dativ du.

(Lied „Frère Jacques“)
aus bei mit nach / aus bei mit nach
seit von zu / seit von zu
immer mit dem Dativ / immer mit dem Dativ
gegenüber auch / gegenüber auch

(Walzer „An der schönen blauen Donau“)
aus außer bei mit nach seit von zu ...


Akkusativ:

bis um für durch ohne gegen = BUFDOG mit Akkusativ

(Lied „Oh du lieber Augustin“)
durch für gegen ohne um ohne um ohne um
durch für gegen ohne um – bis und entlang

[MorkTheFiddle]

Now we need three (long) tunes, probably from Wagner , for memorizing all noun genders.