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The possessive use of the genitive is often substituted by the preposition von. This substitution is –according to many native speakers– rather inelegant, or even frowned upon. For instance

die neue Tasse von meinem Vater ← die neue Tasse meines Vaters

I am interested in finding out if the inverse process happens for the following particular case. Consider verbs that carry the preposition von:

  • abbringen von
  • abhalten von
  • von (Objekt) absehen
  • träumen von …

Could this von be substituted by a genitive-construction? Or maybe it was so in the past? Say

Sie bringt ihn von seinem verrückten Plan ab. → Sie bringt ihn seines verrückten Plans.

and similarly for the remaining verbs.

Em1
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c.p.
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  • Never heard of this happening with verbs. Do you have a reference you want explained, or is just a hypothesis by analogy? – Kilian Foth Dec 02 '13 at 12:19
  • @KilianFoth nur aus reiner Neugier darauf, ob der umgekehrte Prozess sinnvoll ist. – c.p. Dec 02 '13 at 12:22
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    actually it is not the preposition "von", but a Dative construction. that makes doing that for the preposition a bit very difficult ;) – Vogel612 Dec 02 '13 at 14:54
  • @Vogel612 well yes, but as far as I understand, a dative-construction that needs a preposition, namely, von. 'cause you do not* say "die neue Tase meinem Vater ~ die neue Tase meines Vaters" – c.p. Dec 02 '13 at 16:13
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    then please try to make any verb Dative ;) the point is, you need a substantive for this construction in any case. – Vogel612 Dec 02 '13 at 16:20
  • maybe wiki-"Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" would interest you. Look there at Meaning of title – Londane Dec 02 '13 at 16:21
  • @Londane the phenomenon described by your link is precisely what I was interested in in this question. Just trying to guess, if some of the (nowadays) fully accepted dative-construction actually had a genitive-predecesor. (related this question) – c.p. Dec 02 '13 at 16:42
  • @c.p. but it seams that you mix up some von's ^^ . von is used to build dative cases that is true. But it is also used as prepositions to give some additional information. Some Verbs even make no sense without this extra information. So there is nothing to reverse ; ) – Londane Dec 02 '13 at 16:53

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^^
This "inverse process" does not exist. These verbs only make sense if you give the information what these verbs refer to. Think about the verb put. You can only use it if you give the information what to put somewhere. With 'träumen' it's similar. (Although vonis optional ) If you want to express what you dreamed about you have to use von to show the relation. Like: "Ich träume von einer Sprache, die alle sprechen können."

Maybe that helps seeing the difference between the von in the case construction and the von in relation with the verbs. Verben mit Präpositional-Ergänzungen

Londane
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