case of personal adjective in "Meiner Erfahrung nach" and "Meines Wissens nach"

Question

Wiktionary tells me that nach is dative when used as a postposition i.e.

meiner Meinung nach ― in my opinion

i.e. nach = according to.

I thought this makes sense but when I looked at

Meines Wissens nach

I realised that meines is not in the dative

Why is this the case?

Because meines Wissens nach ist not correct. It should be nach meinem Wissen (dative) or meines Wissens (genitive, without nach). — Björn Friedrich, Mar 03 '19 at 17:59
Related: »Meines Wissens nach« – erlaubte Variante oder komplett falsch? — , Mar 03 '19 at 18:13
Possible duplicate of »Meines Wissens nach« – erlaubte Variante oder komplett falsch? — Hubert Schölnast, Mar 03 '19 at 18:25
@HubertSchölnast Bitte denken Sie daran, dass wir englisch gestellte Fragen nicht als Duplikate deutsch gestellter Fragen ansehen und umgekehrt. — Björn Friedrich, Mar 03 '19 at 18:41
Technically not a duplicate, because the other question is in German. — Carsten S, Mar 03 '19 at 18:42
my question is in English, not German, so how can this question be a duplicate? — vik1245, Mar 03 '19 at 18:58
I agree with Hubert: the question is the same, no matter if it is in English, German or, say, Tagalog. It may be a convention not to regard an English question as a duplicate of a German one, but it still is. Nothing new is gained from regarding this as a new question. — Rudy Velthuis, Mar 05 '19 at 00:01

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 05 '19 at 09:23

As mentioned in the comments this question is already asked in German so this is only a translation or transcription resp. of the accepted answer to this question for the sake of completeness.

The term "meines Wissens nach" is simply wrong. The expression "meines Wissens" ("as far as I know") is used without the preposition "nach".

The preposition "nach" is used with similar terms like "meiner Meinung nach", "dem Vernehmen nach", "meinem Gefühl nach" or "seinem Urteil nach". And here nach requires the dative.

But the expressions "meines Wissens" or "meines Erachtens" (without "nach") use the genitive of "Wissen" and "Erachten" resp.

So harshly said "meines Wissens nach" is simply wrong.

case of personal adjective in "Meiner Erfahrung nach" and "Meines Wissens nach"

1 Answers1