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When converting from Verbalstil to Nominalstil, some instructions I found were to convert to change the prepositions:

nachdem->nach

seitdem->seit

als->bei

bis->bis zu

bevor->vor

Could someone explain why we do this? I am trying to gain more intuition for how Nominalstil works.

user unknown
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tryst with freedom
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1 Answers1

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Nachdem, seitdem, als, bis, bevor aren't prepositions to begin with. They are conjunctions. Conjuctions join two clauses, hence the name con —“with”— and junction —well, you know what that one means—.

That clause introduced by nachdem et al. is a so called adverbial clause. So it's an adverbial inside the outer clause. But there's another kind of adverbials as well. It's those noun phrases that are introduced by a preposition (and that aren't a prepositional object).

For many kinds of adverbial clauses, there's an equivalent adverbial noun phrase and this is what Verbalstil vs Nominalstil is all about. You have to drill the pairs of conjunction and preposition that belong together. And you have to know which nouns match a certain verb.

For both there's no simple recipe. For example:

Er geht spazieren, nachdem er gegessen hat.

Er geht nach dem Essen spazieren.

Sie spielt Flöte, seit(dem) sie ein Kind ist.

Sie spielt seit ihrer Kindheit Flöte.

Der Fußgänger geht los, als es grün wird.

Der Fußgänger geht bei grün los.

Spielt gefälligst draußen, bis die Sonne untergeht!

Spielt gefälligst bis zum Sonnenuntergang draußen!

Denkt daran, dass ihr ins Haus kommt, bevor die Sonne untergeht!

Denkt daran, vor dem Sonnenuntergang ins Haus zu kommen!

In the last example I also exchanged the dass led object clause for an infinitive clause, as eliminating conjugated verbs all over the place is a common practice in Nominalstil.

Janka
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  • how does noun phrase differ from prepositional object – tryst with freedom Oct 28 '23 at 16:52
  • So we map an adverbial phrase into an adverbial noun clause – tryst with freedom Oct 28 '23 at 17:00
  • Adverbials differ from prepositional objects. Both are noun phrases. An adverbial gives additional information about the situation while a prepositional object is a sort of object required by a certain verb phrase. For example in the sentence Ein Wegweiser zeigt auf den Brunnen. that part auf den Brunnen is a directional adverbial while in the sentence Er wartet auf den Bus. that part auf den Bus is a prepositional object required by the verb phrase warten auf. – Janka Oct 28 '23 at 19:11
  • You can tell the two apart by recognizing that the usual meaning of the preposition does not apply: it's a prepositional object then. It only makes sense together with the verb. – Janka Oct 28 '23 at 19:13
  • No, you map an adverbial clause to an adverbial noun phrase. – Janka Oct 28 '23 at 19:14