Genitive Prepositions: trotz, während, wegen, statt

The genitive's main job outside of possession

Outside of showing possession, the genitive case's biggest remaining job in modern German is following this small set of prepositions: trotz ('despite'), während ('during'), wegen ('because of'), and statt ('instead of'). Malayalam doesn't route these meanings through its case system at all — trotz's meaning, for instance, overlaps with the -ആലും concessive suffix from the concessive clauses lesson rather than a case-marked noun. Treat this short preposition list as the genitive's practical payoff: once you know des Mannes, these four prepositions are just new contexts for a case ending you've already learned.