Four Approaches to the Dative/Accusative Prepositions

reflected in the terminology we use to refer to them: prepositions with the dative or the accusative, prepositions with the dative and the accusative, two-way prepositions, either-or prepositions, doubtful prepositions. These terms are not meant to suggest that these prepositions govern both cases simultaneously in the same clause or that they may govern either case with the same meaning, but that each preposition governs the dative case to express one meaning (typically called "location") and also governs the accusative case to express another (typically called "destination"). Of course, this dichotomy applies only to about one-third of the constructions involving these prepositions, a problem to which we will return below. This discussion will treat approaches based on the alphabet, semantic pairs, frequency of the preposition overall, and the frequency of the case with each preposition.'