Präpositionen II: Sekundäre Präpositionen
The so-called secondary prepositions mostly do not look like typical prepositions, having the form of an adverb, adjective, verb, noun or prepositional phrase. Secondary prepositions generally display a synchronic alternation between genitive and dative government. A great number of prepositions require the genitive but can also be constructed with the dative, mainly in oral and informal language. On the other hand, a small group of prepositions should govern only dative, but in everyday language genitive is not unusual.