Why does the accusative noun (den Joghurt) go before the dative noun (dem Frühstück) in the following sentence?:
Ich esse den Joghurt zum Frühstück
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1Does this answer your question?– guidot ♦May 3, 2022 at 20:32
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Zum Frühstück is not a dative object, it's a prepositional object.– RHaMay 4, 2022 at 6:16
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I closed the question as, to me, it looks like a duplicate to the linked question and has already been answered there. If this is a misunderstanding and your question is actually different from the linked question, please edit your answer to line out the differences more clearly. I will be happy to reopen your question then.– Jonathan Scholbach ♦May 4, 2022 at 8:18
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1Note, that the noun Joghurt has two different genders, depending on the geographic region. It's masculine (der Joghurt) only in Germany (with some exceptions) but neuter (das Joghurt) in Switzerland and Austria. atlas-alltagssprache.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/f4_24b.jpg– Hubert SchölnastMay 5, 2022 at 5:09
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1 Answer
Simple reason: you chose it to be there. You didn't have to.
Ich esse zum Frühstück den Joghurt
Zum Frühstück esse ich den Joghurt
Den Joghurt esse ich zum Frühstück
Ich esse den Joghurt zum Frühstück
Are all equivalent and only the emphasis of which part is more important to you changes ever so slightly. If I had to call it, then the most emphasized parts are the first before the verb and the one following it, though you can change a lot by your intonation and putting verbal emphasis on whatever part you like to see stressed.
See also this previous question guidot found on the order of Akkusativ and Dativ objects: Dative or accusative object comes first?
answered May 3, 2022 at 20:39
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1I think Blavius' answer in the link sums it up. In this case, zu is the preposition and zu Frühstück is telling 'when', not 'what'. Note that Joghurt, being a material, does not normally take an article, so apparently it's an individual serving.– RDBuryMay 4, 2022 at 3:55