Prepositions Governing the Dative | Romanian Grammar

Most Romanian prepositions take a plain accusative noun (cu trenul, la școală, pe masă), and a special spatial set — deasupra, în fața, împotriva — takes the genitive. There is also a third, smaller club: a handful of prepositions that govern the dative. They are few, but they are disproportionately useful, because almost all of them belong to formal, written, or careful Romanian: conform legii ("according to the law"), datorită ajutorului tău ("thanks to your help"), contrar așteptărilor ("contrary to expectations"). Master these and you sound markedly more educated. The headline trap they hide is a meaning split English does not make: datorită (good cause) versus din cauza (bad cause) — which take different cases.

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The dative-governing prepositions are a closed, learnable list: datorită, grație, mulțumită ("thanks to"), conform, potrivit ("according to"), contrar ("contrary to"), asemenea ("like"). Because genitive and dative share one noun form, the noun looks identical to a genitive — the dative shows its true colors only with pronouns (datorită ție, not datorită ta).

The "thanks to" group: datorită, grație, mulțumită

These three all mean "thanks to / owing to," and all three take the dative. They are near-synonyms; datorită is the everyday choice, grație and mulțumită are more elevated and slightly literary. The noun after them goes into the gen-dat form: masculine/neuter -lui, feminine -ei/-ii, plural -lor.

Am reușit datorită ajutorului tău.

I succeeded thanks to your help.

Grație unei burse, a putut studia la Viena.

Thanks to a scholarship, she was able to study in Vienna. (literary register)

Mulțumită vecinilor, n-am rămas pe drumuri.

Thanks to the neighbors, I wasn't left out on the street.

Notice vecinilor — the plural gen-dat ending -lor that all genders share. The cause being credited is always something positive or at least neutral: a help, a piece of luck, an effort. You thank these prepositions for a good outcome.

datorită (good cause) vs din cauza (bad cause): the central trap

This is the distinction that separates careful Romanian from sloppy Romanian. Romanian splits "because of" into two opposite words depending on whether the cause led to something good or something bad — and, maddeningly, the two take different cases:

datorită
- dative → a positive cause. Datorită ploii, recolta a fost bună. ("Thanks to the rain, the harvest was good.")
din cauza
- genitive → a negative cause. Din cauza ploii, s-a anulat meciul. ("Because of the rain, the match was cancelled.")

Datorită antrenamentului, echipa a câștigat campionatul.

Thanks to the training, the team won the championship. (positive → datorită + dative)

Din cauza traficului, am ajuns o oră mai târziu.

Because of the traffic, I arrived an hour late. (negative → din cauza + genitive)

Datorită ție am trecut examenul.

Thanks to you, I passed the exam. (positive cause; note the dative pronoun ție)

Why two words at all? Because Romanian fossilized the literal meanings. Datorită comes from a datora ("to owe") — you owe the good outcome to something. Din cauza literally means "from the cause of" and is morphologically a genitive construction (cauză is a noun, so its complement is a possessor: cauza ploii = "the cause of the rain"). They were never the same word, so they never merged. Using datorită for a disaster (datorită războiului, "thanks to the war") sounds either tone-deaf or sarcastic to a native ear.

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Decide the valence before you pick the word. Good/neutral outcome → datorită + dative. Bad outcome → din cauza + genitive. Getting this wrong is not just a grammar slip — it changes the emotional color of the sentence, so datorită bolii ("thanks to the illness") reads as grimly ironic.

conform and potrivit: "according to"

In legal, administrative, and journalistic Romanian, "according to X" is conform X-ului or potrivit X-ului, both with the dative. They are interchangeable; conform is a touch more bureaucratic, potrivit a touch more journalistic ("according to sources"). This is one of the most common dative-preposition uses you will read in any newspaper or official document.

Conform legii, contractul trebuie semnat de ambele părți.

According to the law, the contract must be signed by both parties. (formal/legal)

Potrivit surselor, ministrul își va da demisia.

According to sources, the minister will resign. (journalistic)

Conform programului, trenul ar fi trebuit să sosească la nouă.

According to the schedule, the train should have arrived at nine.

You will also see conform cu + accusative in some contexts ("in conformity with"), but the bare conform + dative is the standard "according to" pattern. Potrivit is also an ordinary adjective ("suitable"); as a preposition it always takes the dative.

contrar and asemenea

Two more round out the list. Contrar ("contrary to," formal) takes the dative and is common in argumentative or academic writing. Asemenea ("like, similar to," literary/formal) also governs the dative — in everyday speech people just use ca ("like") instead, so asemenea signals an elevated register.

Contrar așteptărilor, proiectul s-a terminat la timp.

Contrary to expectations, the project finished on time. (formal)

S-a comportat contrar regulilor stabilite.

He behaved contrary to the established rules.

Asemenea tatălui său, a ales medicina.

Like his father, he chose medicine. (literary; everyday Romanian would say ca tatăl său)

With pronouns the dative is unmasked

Because genitive and dative share one noun form, after these prepositions a noun gives you no visible clue which case it is. The mask comes off only with pronouns. The genitive-governing prepositions take a possessive with pronouns (împotriva mea, "against me," literally "against my [side]"), but the dative-governing prepositions take a true dative pronoun: datorită mie, datorită ție, datorită lui/ei, datorită nouă, datorită vouă, datorită lor.

Datorită ție, am descoperit cartea asta.

Thanks to you, I discovered this book. (dative pronoun ție, not the possessive ta)

Contrar nouă, ei cred că merită riscul.

Contrary to us, they think it's worth the risk.

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The pronoun test settles every doubt. If the preposition takes mie/ție/lui/nouă/vouă/lor (the dative strong pronouns), it is a dative preposition. If it takes mea/tale/lui/noastră/lor (possessives), it is genitive. So datorită ție is dative; împotriva ta is genitive. See the pronoun case page for the full strong-pronoun paradigm.

No doubling clitic here

A subtle but important contrast with the ordinary verbal dative: when a da, a spune, a mulțumi govern a dative noun, that noun is doubled by a clitic (Îi mulțumesc profesorului). The prepositional dative is different — there is no doubling clitic. You say datorită profesorului, never îi datorită profesorului. The clitic doubling belongs to the verbal dative (recipients), not to the prepositional dative (cause, source, conformity).

Am terminat la timp datorită colegilor.

We finished on time thanks to the colleagues. (no clitic — prepositional dative)

Common Mistakes

❌ Datorită accidentului, a întârziat o lună întreagă.

Tone-deaf — datorită is for positive causes; a delaying accident is negative, so use din cauza.

✅ Din cauza accidentului, a întârziat o lună întreagă.

Because of the accident, he was a whole month late.

❌ datorită ta

Incorrect — datorită takes the dative, so the pronoun is ție, not the possessive ta.

✅ datorită ție

thanks to you

❌ din cauza ție

Incorrect — din cauza takes the genitive, so the pronoun is the possessive ta, not the dative ție.

✅ din cauza ta

because of you

❌ conform legea

Incorrect — conform governs the dative: conform legii (lege → legi → legii).

✅ conform legii

according to the law

❌ Îi datorită profesorului am reușit.

Incorrect — the prepositional dative takes no doubling clitic; drop the îi.

✅ Datorită profesorului am reușit.

Thanks to the teacher, I succeeded.

Key Takeaways

A small, mostly formal set of prepositions takes the dative: datorită, grație, mulțumită ("thanks to"), conform, potrivit ("according to"), contrar ("contrary to"), asemenea ("like").
The big trap is valence: datorită + dative for a good cause, din cauza + genitive for a bad cause — different words, different cases.
The noun after them looks identical to a genitive (syncretism); the pronoun reveals the dative (datorită ție, not datorită ta).
Unlike the verbal dative, the prepositional dative takes no doubling clitic.
Conform/potrivit are everywhere in formal and journalistic Romanian — high-value for reading.

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