Break down of this sentence structure "Traditionalisten ist aber das St.-Martins-Fest einige Tag später lieber."

Question

I am trying to understand the construction of this following sentence:

Traditionalisten ist aber das St.-Martins-Fest einige Tag später lieber.

from this article: https://learngerman.dw.com/de/feste-und-traditionen-im-jahreskreis/l-40588953/rs-39364347

I understand the translation is something like:

But the traditionalists prefer St. Martins festival a few days later.

I'm trying to understand what are the grammatical components of this sentence. Just from where the verb is and the conjugation of the verb I believe that the nominative is das St.-Martinsfest and the accusative is Traditionalisten. I don't understand the placement of the aber and the lieber. I tried to look for examples of it online, but couldn't find anything derivative.

From my understanding of the grammar, I would have written that sentence something like this:

Aber das St.-Martinsfest ist lieber Tradionalisten einige Tag später.

But I am not sure if it makes sense or if I am losing emphasis on the Traditionalisten portion. I feel a more direct translation would result in something like the following sentence:

aber traditionalisten sind lieber das St.-Martinsfest einige Tag später.

But again not sure if it is 100% grammatically correct and if it has the same emphasis or not.

Answer 1

Aber can be used as an adverb, so you will often hear it in various sentence positions, especially from my experience directly after the initial verb. Think of it I suppose like the English 'however'.

As for your attempt at the sentence, you changed 'ist' to 'sind', but you were actually right to say that 'das St Martins Fest' is the nominative, and that is singular so the verb should be too. 'Traditionalisten' is dative, which is not entirely clear because of the lack of article/adjective.

I suppose a more direct (but still rather loose) translation would be

to traditionalists St Martins Fest (that takes place a few days later) is better.

Lieber is a comparative that shows how people like to do things, so 'ich wohne lieber hier als dort' means 'I prefer to live hear rather than there'.

Your version would translate to 'traditionalists are better a few days later', traditionalisten is the indirect object here because the festival is better a few days later to them.

As for the rest of the word order the rules are pretty loose, but often the first 'idea' will be something that you will get more information on later in the sentence, it sort of sets the tone for the rest of the sentence.