Accusative Nouns With Adverbial Meaning
The duration or the spatial extent of a verb's action can be expressed by a nominal expression in the accusative case.
Das Kind malte die ganze Zeit Bilder ("The child was painting pictures all the time")
Read more about this topic: German Adverbial Phrases
Famous quotes containing the words nouns and/or meaning:
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: “Here,” he said, “are the walls of the city,” meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)