ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Norwegian Sentence Structure and Pronouns</title> <meta name="description" content="Norwegian Grammar 2"> <link href="http://www.linguata.com/styles/newstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="http://www.linguata.com/lightbox/lightbox.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.linguata.com/lightbox/lightbox.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="header"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com"> <img src="http://www.linguata.com/images/logo.gif" title="An introduction to Norwegian" border="0" /></a></div> <div id="menuarea"> <div id="menu"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com">Home</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Languages.html">Languages</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Ordering.html?language=none">Buy</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/learnnorwegian.html">Learn Norwegian</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/About_Us.html">About</a> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="content"> <div id="threetier" align="center"> </div> <div id="maincentred"> <p> <!- All text goes under here -!> <h1>Norwegian Grammar. Sentence Structure</h1> <p>Linguata aims to give the student a feel for the new language, and a sense of how it works, rather than to burden him or her with a mass of indigestible material of largely academic interest. For this reason the approach followed in these articles is grounded in what is practical and memorable rather than all-encompassing and tending towards memory overload. Phrases of practical interest are taken from the full Linguata program and analysed to show how the language works.</p> <p>The first point to note is that Norwegian presents a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar words to the English-speaker:</p> <p><i>Jeg vill kunne snakke norsk </i> I want to learn Norwegian.</p> <small><i>Jeg </i>(silent  g ) is very close to  I ; <i>vill</i> : not far removed in meaning from  want ; <i>kunne</i>, basic meaning  can ,  to be able also means  to know as in  D ye ken John Peel . <i>Snakke </i>meaning  to talk, chat gives rise to the appealing word <i>snikksnakk </i> nonsense and is the one word in the sentence whose meaning is not suggested by any similarity to the English.</small> <p><i>Jeg snakker bare litt norsk </i> I only speak a little Norwegian.</p> <p><small><i>Bare </i>means  only, just (cf  barely ) and <i>litt </i>means  a little, somewhat , as in <i>litt vin</i>,  a little wine .</small></p> <p>The second point is that simple sentences in Norwegian have the same structure as in English, i.e. they have a subject and a predicate saying something about the subject. In these examples the subject is a pronoun, <i>Jeg</i>, and the predicate is composed of a verb, <i>snakke</i>, and an object, <i>norsk</i>.</p> <p>The third point is that Norwegian nouns can be masculine, feminine or neuter. In many cases there is no obvious reason why the noun has been allocated to one gender rather than another. It is worth remembering that over half the nouns are masculine and the 20 per cent that are feminine can, with few exceptions, be treated as masculine. It is therefore a good idea to make a special effort to remember the gender of the neuter nouns as you come across them.</p> <h2>Pronouns</h2> <p>Here is a list of pronouns which shows how they change if they are the object of a verb as in the phrase <i>Unnschyld meg! </i>( Excuse me!). It also shows the associated possessive adjectives and pronouns and their different gender forms (see below for examples of use):</p> <table border="1"> <tr> <td width="10"><b>Subj.</b></td> <td width="80"></td><td width="10"> <b>Object</b></td><td width="10"></td><td width="128"> <b>Adjective/Poss.Pronoun</b></td> <td width="10"></td></tr> <tr> <td><i>jeg</i></td> <td>I (the  g is silent in <i>jeg, meg </i>and <i>deg</i>).</td><td><i>meg</i></td><td>me</td> <td><i>min</i> (masc.), <i>mi</i> (fem.), <i>mitt</i> (neut.), <i>mine</i> (plural)</td><td>my <p>mine</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>du</i></td> <td>you (informal).</td><td><i>deg</i></td> <td>you</td><td><i>din, di, ditt, dine</i></td><td>your <p>yours</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>De</i></td> <td>you (formal); always written with a capital D.</td> <td><i>Dem</i></td> <td>you</td><td><i>Deres</i> for all genders (note capital D).</td><td>your <p>yours</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>han</i></td> <td>he</td><td><i>ham</i></td> <td>him</td><td><i>hans</i> (singular) <p><i>deres</i> (plural)</p></td><td>his</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>hun</i></td> <td>she</td><td><i>henne</i></td> <td>her</td><td><i>hennes <p>deres</p></i></td><td>hers</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>den/det</i></td> <td>it: <i>den</i> used when  it refers to masculine or feminine nouns; <i>det</i> for neuter nouns (silent  t  sounds like the da- in  date ).</td><td><i>dens/det</i></td><td>it <p>them</p></td> <td><i>dens <p>dets</p></i></td><td>its</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>vi</i></td> <td>we</td><td><i>oss</i></td> <td>us</td><td><i>vår, vår, vårt, våre</i></td><td>our <p>ours</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>dere</i></td> <td>you (plural)</td><td><i>dere</i></td> <td>you</td><td><i>deres</i></td><td>your <p>yours</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>De</i></td> <td>you (plural, formal)</td><td><i>Dem</i></td><td>you</td> <td><i>Deres</i></td><td>your <p>yours</td> </tr> <tr> <td><i>de</i></td> <td>they - all genders (<i>De, de </i>rhyme with 'we')</td><td><i>dem</i></td> <td>them</td><td><i>deres</i></td><td>their <p>theirs</p></td> </tr> </table> <p><b>Examples</b></p> <p><i>Kan du hjelpe meg? </i> Can you help me?</p> <p><i>Kan jeg hjeple deg? </i> Can I help you?</p> <p><i>Dette er min sønn. </i> This is my son.</p> <p><i>Den bilen er min. </i> That car is mine.</p> <p><i>Det er hans pass.</i> It is his passport.</p> <p><i>Det huset ar vårt. </i> That house is ours. </p> <br> <small><h3>References and Recommended Reading</h3></small> <small><p>Wikipedia- <i>The Norwegian Language</i> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language.</p> <p>Louis Janus, <i>Norwegian: Verbs and Essentials of Grammar </i>(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998)</small> </p> <br><br> <h2>Related languages</h2> <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Danish_Phrases.html">Danish</a>, <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Swedish.html">Swedish</a> <BR><BR> <!- No more text goes under here -!> </p> </div> </div> <img src="http://www.linguata.com/images/contentbottom.gif" /><br /> <div id="footer"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/words_and_phrases.html" title="Words and phrases in different languages" >WORDS AND PHRASES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/language_faqs.html" title="Questions and answers on different languages">LANGUAGE FAQS</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/language-learning.html" title="A reference to many world languages" >DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/pronunciation.html" title="An introduction to the pronunciation of many languages" >PRONUNCIATION</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/general-articles-on-language.html" title="Articles on language and language learning" >ARTICLES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/history-of-languages.html" title="A brief history on the development of languages" >HISTORY</a>| <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/search.html" title="Search this site" >SEARCH</a> </div> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://cetrk.com/pages/scripts/0005/1332.js"> </script> </body> </html>