Da- Compounds of Prepositions: Review

Da- Compounds of Prepositions: Review

Instead of a noun, a preposition may be followed by a pronoun. Of course, you have to put the pronoun in the case required by the preposition.

However, if the pronoun refers to a thing then you replace the prepositional phrase with a da- compound of the preposition. (Remember that the pronoun could be masculine or feminine and still refer to a thing, and it could be neuter and refer to a person).

But you know this! We studied compound forms with prepositional complements in exactly the same cases:

Ulrike wartet auf ihn. - 'auf ihn' refers to a person.
Ulrike wartet darauf. - 'darauf' refers to a thing (like her lunch).

Compound forms in prepositional phrases function exactly like compound forms with prepositional complements: one uses da- and adds the preposition. If the prepositions beginns with a vowel, one puts an -r- beween da- and the preposition. In spoken German the a of da- is quite often eliminated.

Examples: dazu, dabei, damit, but d(a)rauf, d(a)rin, d(a)ran

Ulrike fährt mit ihm nach Heidelberg. - 'mit ihm' refers to a person
Ulrike fährt damit an die Uni. - 'damit' refers to some kind of a vehicle
Ulrike sitzt darauf. - 'darauf' refers to something on which one can sit (like a chair)

N.B.: If you forget using the compound form which would not be a major linguistic sin remember the pronoun has to be of the same gender as the noun.

Ich sitze gern auf dem Sofa. (das Sofa)
Ich sitze gern auf ihm.
Ich sitze gern darauf.