Ab nächsten Monat bekomme ich ...
The prepostion ab should be followed by the Dative case, and the Starke Flexion applies here, so I'm tempted to say "ab nächstem Monat" instead of "ab nächsten Monat".
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asked Apr 10 '17 at 17:40
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nächstem Monat is hard to pronouce. People usually get both ab nächstem Jahr and seit vorigem Monat right, but everyone stumbles about the nächstem Monat and accidentally hits the n. Don't worry too much about it. – Janka Apr 10 '17 at 18:34
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2@Janka The pronunciation is not a good explanation. The same thing works with Samstag, which doesn't hit a double "m". – tofro Apr 10 '17 at 18:42
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For me, its the whole chst consonant cluster followed by a non-silient em and another m. I always hear people helping themselves out by mumbling ab nächstm'Monat, dropping the e, even pulling together the two m's. – Janka Apr 10 '17 at 18:47
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Two factors coincide:
The German dative is slowly dying, being replaced by other cases across the board. We may not see the last of it, but our descendants surely will.
No matter how you intend to pronounce it, in practice, "einen"+"Monat" is indistinguishable from "einem"+"Monat" anyway because of coarticulation. Therefore, people who spell "by ear" have even less incentive than usual to preserve the dative in this construction.
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@tofro The entire case system is on its way out. The genitive is the first to go because it's already the least-used case, but the dative is going the same way. Most dative noun endings are already gone; only the more frequent pronouns and articles are still resisting. – Kilian Foth Apr 11 '17 at 6:16
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1But it's not like this is going to happen next month. We might have to wait 500 more years until we'll finally lose the dative... – tofro Apr 11 '17 at 6:33
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Actually, you may use both dative and accusative with ab in a temporary usage.
ab nächstem Monat
ab nächsten Monat
Duden uses the example
ab kommendem/(auch:) kommenden Montag
Note the accusative usage is restricted to the above shortened form. As soon as you introduce an article, like in
ab dem nächsten Montag
ab den nächsten Montag
accusative no longer works.
