Viteberger

Prepositions and the dative case - Forméninger ok dátiv Falet

In general, the dative is used to mark the indirect object of a Viteberger sentence. In the following example Man is in the dative:

Ey Manit Boket sendet - I sent the book to the man

In English, the same sentence may be rendered: “I sent the man the book.” The indirect object here is marked by standing in front of the direct object. The normal word order in Viteberger is also to put the dative in front of the accusative (as in the example above). However, since the Viteberger dative is marked in form, it can also be put after the accusative: Ey Boket Manit sendet.

Certain Viteberger prepositions require the dative: fra, nem, mot, med, efter, seden, av, fyer. Other prepositions (til, ö, bak, i, darauk, um, under, för, mil) may be used with dative (indicating current location), or accusative (indicating direction toward something). Boket ö Bordit li (dative: the book is lying on the table), but Ey Boket ö Bordet set (accusative: I put the book onto the table).

In addition, the four prepositions vegne (“because of”), trots (“in spite of”), anstät (“instead of”) and vid (“during”), which require the genitive in formal language, are most commonly used with the dative in colloquial Viteberger. For example, “because of the weather” is expressed as vegne Väterit instead of the formally correct vegen Väterus.

Note that the concept of an indirect object may be rendered by a prepositional phrase. In this case, the noun’s or pronoun’s case is determined by the preposition, NOT by its function in the sentence.

Some Viteberger verbs require the dative for their direct objects. Common examples include folgan, hyalpan, and svaran. In each case, the direct object of the verb is rendered in dative. For example:

Men Viner mir hyalp. - My friends help me.