Franconian Beer Message Board
B&J in Franken: Prepositions & be- Verbs |
| Posted by Nick B. on 2014-05-01 01:29:53 |
| Ach, so! Indeed I did have a more literal table in my mind, not the concept. But even so, I still wouldn't associate "on" with the idea of being [insert preposition] the regular's table. Must be a golfer's thing! (And when I say "thing", I mean "affliction".) I reckon the use of "on" in the case of Kellner's "waiting on a table" is more specifically tied to the verb "to wait" than to the noun being waited on. Germans, of course, can dispense with the preposition altogether in this case, since they have a nice, efficient "be-" verb: bedienen. The Kellner bewaits them / Der Kellner bedient sie. German is full of such verbs. Often there are two verbs, one with and one without "be". The ones without require a preposition, the be-ones work directly on the noun in question, AFAIK always in the accusative. You can drive on the street, or you can bedrive the street. You can speak about something, or you can bespeak something. A favourite of mine is, you can becook your dinnerparty guests. Otherwise, along with "in", the usage of the prepositions "on/at" correspond very, very consistently with the use of the German Präpositionen "auf/an". Standing at the window, hanging the painting on the wall, etc., etc. "With/mit" and "without/ohne" are also nearly exactly interchangeable, but then there are also so many, many painful differences between the prepositions to learn. |