The German language includes several different kinds of adverbial phrases.
Das Kind malte die ganze Zeit Bilder ("The child was painting pictures all the time") Adverb formation is simpler in German than in most other languages.
Only a limited number of adverbs have a special elative form ending in -stens, e.g. schnellstens ('as fast as possible'), bestens ('very well').
In German, they may be distinguished by their lack of declension, because adjectives in attributive position must be declined.
This structure might be cognate with the English -wise, an "adverb combining form," e.g., "clockwise".
Other situations, including movement within a confined area, take the dative case.
For example: Prepositions do not always have a locative meaning; they can also be modal or temporal adverbs, for example.
In some cases, the preposition and the article of the nominal phrase may or must elide together.