I'm currently trying to brush up on my very rusty German, as it is a requirement of my thesis program to consult secondary literature in at least one other language than English. (I have decided that my May and June will be devoted to German, and my July and August to French, since I plan to apply to Ph.D. programs in the Fall and I'd better know both.)
I'm currently on the chapter regarding prepositions, and have learned that für takes the accusative. One of the example sentences given under für was "Was für ein Mann ist der Briefträger?", which I found confusing, as "ein Mann" is in the nominative, not accusative.
A bit of Googling reveals some discussion of this, but it's mostly in German, and none of the people in question explain very thoroughly what's going on here. Apparently für is not being used as a preposition here, but in some other way -- but what way, and why is "ein Mann" in the nominative?
Tagging Bitmap and Etaoin Shrdlu.
I'm currently on the chapter regarding prepositions, and have learned that für takes the accusative. One of the example sentences given under für was "Was für ein Mann ist der Briefträger?", which I found confusing, as "ein Mann" is in the nominative, not accusative.
A bit of Googling reveals some discussion of this, but it's mostly in German, and none of the people in question explain very thoroughly what's going on here. Apparently für is not being used as a preposition here, but in some other way -- but what way, and why is "ein Mann" in the nominative?
Tagging Bitmap and Etaoin Shrdlu.