Danish Grammar (W)
Danish Grammar (W)
Danish Grammar (W)
Danish grammar is either the study of the grammar of ways just adds -en or -et. Plural definite adds -ne to the
the Danish language, or the grammatical system itself of indefinite if it has a standard plural suffix, -ene if not.
the Danish language.
If a noun is preceded by a number composed of more than
one distinct part, the last part determines the grammatical
number. 1001 Nat (literally “1001 Night”) and to en halv
1 Nouns time (literally “two and a half hour”) use singular nouns,
whereas English would use “nights” and “hours”.
Main article: Gender in Danish and Swedish
Drengen. The boy. When the noun can be considered part of the possessor
noun physically (a part-whole relation), the possessive is
Fængslet. The jail. often replaced by a prepositional phrase, e.g. låget på
The articles and suffixes for plural nouns are more com- spanden “the lid on the bucket”, bagsiden af huset “the
plex. The following table shows the various inflections of back of the house” rather than spandens låg, husets bag-
articles for regular Danish nouns in both noun classes. side, which are not incorrect but more formal, and less
informative.
As the table above indicates, there is a certain degree of
predictability of the plural form based on the gender and Older case forms exist as relics in phrases like i live “alive”
the number of syllables in a word. However, even among (liv = “life”), på tide “about time” (tid = “time”), på fode
regular nouns, the choice between -er and -e for common “on his foot” (fod = “foot”). Similarly, the genitive is
gender nouns is not predictable in monosyllables and one used in certain fossilised prepositional phrases (with til
can only generalize that borrowings tend to take -er. Fur- “to”): til fods “on foot”, til vands/søs “by water/sea”, gå
thermore, there are many irregular nouns, as exemplified til hånde “assist” (hånde being an old genitive plural of
below. hånd “hand”, now replaced by hænder).
Note that if the final syllable ends in unstressed -e, -el, -en,
or in some cases -er, the e will disappear if a grammatic 1.3 Articles
ending starting with an e is added. E.g. the declension of
“fængsel” above is quite regular. The indefinite article, en, et, is prepositive as in all Eu-
There are many nouns with irregular plurals. Here are ropean languages that have an indefinite article, and the
some typical examples: origin of the word is the same as in the other Germanic
Some have the “wrong” regular form, some have vowel languages, namely the numeral én, ét “one” . There is no
change with or without a suffix, and some are foreign indefinite article in the plural.
words using their native plurals. In all cases, it is only The definite article, -en, -et, -(e)ne, is postpositive as in
the plural indefinite that is irregular. Singular definite al- the other Scandinavian languages save the West Jutlandic
1
2 3 VERBS
a. Real, or at least possibly real, situation in present time: 1. a reciprocal form (only with the s-passive): Hans og
Hvis Peter køber kage, laver Anne kaffe. “If Peter buys Jørgen mødtes på gaden “John and George met on
[some] cake, Anne makes coffee.” Here, the present in- the street”, vi ses på onsdag “we'll see each other
dicative is used. on Wednesday”, I må ikke slås “you must not fight”
b. Real, or at least possibly real, situation in past time: (literally “beat each other”).
Hvis Peter købte kage, lavede Anne kaffe. “If Peter bought
2. an intransitive form (a lexicalised s-passive): der
[some] cake, Anne made coffee.” Here, the past indica-
findes / fandtes mange grunde til at komme “there
tive is used.
are / were many reasons why one should come” (lit-
c. Unreal situation in present time: Hvis Peter købte erally: “are / were found”).
kage, lavede Anne kaffe. “If Peter bought [some] cake,
Anne made coffee.” (Implying: But Peter doesn't actu- 3. an impersonal form: der kæmpes / bliver kæmpet om
ally buy any cake, so Anne doesn't make coffee—making pladserne “there is a struggle for the seats”.
the whole statement hypothetical.) Here, the past indica-
tive is used.
In the preterite, the periphrastic form is preferred in non-
d1. Unreal situation in past time: Hvis Peter havde købt formal speech except in reciprocal and impersonal pas-
kage, havde Anne lavet kaffe. “If Peter had bought [some] sives: de sås ofte “they often saw each other”, der fandtes
cake, Anne had made coffee.” (Implying that Peter didn't en lov imod det “there was a law against it” (but real pas-
actually buy any cake and so Anne didn't make coffee— sive: de blev set af politiet “they were seen by the police”,
making the whole statement hypothetical.) Here, the der blev fundet en bombe “a bomb was found”).
pluperfect indicative is used.
The s-form of the verb can also imply habitual or repet-
A language with a full subjunctive mood, the way it typi- itive action, e.g. bilen vaskes “the car is washed” (regu-
cally works in Indo-European languages, would translate larly) vs. bilen bliver vasket “the car is (being) washed”
cases a. and b. with indicative forms of the verb, and (right now, soon, next week, etc.)
case c. and d. with subjunctive forms. In the hypothetical
The s-passive of the perfect participle is regular in
cases (c. and d.), Danish and English create distance from
Swedish both in the real passive and in other functions,
reality by “moving the tense one step back”. Although
e.g. vårt företag har funnits sedan 1955 “our company
these sentences do work, however, it would be normal in
has existed since 1955”, bilen har setts ute på Stockholms
Danish as well as in English, to further stress the irreal-
gator “the car has been seen in the streets of S.” In Dan-
ity by adding a modal. So that, instead of either example
ish, the real passive has only periphrastic forms in the
c. or d1, Danish and English would add “ville/would” in
perfect: bilen er blevet set ude på Stockholms gader. In
the main sentence, creating what may be considered a pe-
the lexicalised and reciprocal passives, on the other hand,
riphrastic subjunctive:
we find a combination of the verb have and the s-passive
d2. Unreal situation in past time: Hvis Peter havde købt preterite: e.g. mødtes “have met”, har fandtes “have ex-
kage, ville Anne have lavet kaffe. “If Peter had bought isted” etc. (but strangely enough, the irregular har set(e)s
[some] cake, Anne would have made coffee.” “have seen each other” is much more common than har
(As will be seen from the examples, Danish, unlike En- sås, which is considered substandard).
glish, switches from the normal subject-verb word order
to verb-subject when a main clause follows a subordinate
clause, but that’s always the case and has nothing to do 3.5 Present participles
with the mood of the sentence. See V2 word order.)
The present participle is used to a much lesser extent than
in English. The dangling participle, a characteristic fea-
ture of English, is not used in Danish. Instead Danish uses
3.4 Voice subordinate or coordinate clauses with a finite verb, e.g.
eftersom han var konge, var det ham, der måtte bestemme,
“Being the king, he had the last word”. The present par-
Like the other Scandinavian languages, Danish has a
ticiple is used in two circumstances:
special inflection for the passive voice with the suffix -
s, which is historically a reduced enclitic form of the
reflexive pronoun sig (“himself, herself, itself, them- 1. as an attributive adjective: en dræbende tavshed, “a
selves”), e.g. han kalder sig “he calls himself” > han boring (lit. killing) silence”, en galoperende infla-
kaldes “he is called”. tion, “a runaway inflation”, hendes rødmende kinder,
“her blushing cheeks”.
Danish has a competing periphrastic form of the passive
formed with the verb blive (“to remain, to become”). 2. adverbially with verbs of movement: han gik syn-
In addition to the proper passive constructions, the passive gende ned ad gaden, “he walked down the street
also denotes: singing”
4 3 VERBS
If the present participle carries an object or an ad- tion like Henstillen af cykler forbudt, “It is prohibited to
verb, the two words are normally treated as a compound leave your bike here.” Whereas the infinitive is accompa-
orthographically and prosodically: et menneskeædende nied with adjectives in the neuter (det er svært at flyve,
uhyre, “a man-eating monster”, en hurtig(t)løbende bold, “it is difficult to fly”), the verbal noun governs the com-
“a fast(-going) ball”, fodbold- og kvindeelskende mænd, mon gender. Due to the rarity of this form, Danes often
“men loving football and women”. mistakenly write Henstilling af cykler forbudt (lit. “Rec-
ommendation of bikes prohibited”) instead, using a more
familiar word form.
3.6 Past participles Verbal nouns like viden “knowledge” (literally: “know-
ing”) or kunnen “ability” (literally: “being able”) have be-
The past participle is used primarily in the periphrastic
come lexicalised due to the influence of German (Wissen,
constructions of the passive (with blive) and the perfect
Können). Like the proper verbal noun, these forms have
(with være). It is often used in dangling constructions in
no plural, and they cannot carry the definite article; so,
the solemn prose style: Således oplyst(e) kan vi skride til
when English has the knowledge, Danish must use a pro-
afstemning, “Now being informed, we can take a vote”,
noun or a circumlocution: e.g. hans viden, denne viden,
han tog, opfyldt af had til tyrannen, ivrig del i forbere-
den viden man havde.
delserne til revolutionen, “filled with hatred of the tyrant,
he participated eagerly in the preparations for the revolu- Danish has various suffixes for turning a verb into a real
tion”. noun:
The past participle of the weak verbs has the ending -et
or -t. The past participle of the strong verbs originally • the suffix -(n)ing: hængning “hanging” (: hænge),
had the ending -en, neuter -et, but the common form is samling “collection” (: samle). The suffix, which is
now restricted to the use as an adjective (e.g. en bunden still productive, is related to the German -(n)ung and
opgave), and it has not been preserved in all verbs. When the English -ing. Words with this suffix belong to the
it is combined with er and har to form passive and per- common (originally feminine) gender. The variant
fect constructions, the neuter form, which happens to be without -n- is used after stems ending in n, nd, r and
identical to the ending of the weak verbs, is used. In the consonant + l.
Jutlandic dialects, -en is frequently used in such construc-
• the suffix -else: bekræftelse “confirmation” (:
tions.
bekræfte). The suffix, which is still productive, takes
As to the voice of the past participle, it is passive if the the common gender.
verb is transitive, and active if it is intransitive.
• the suffix -sel: fængsel “jail” (: fange), fødsel “birth”
(: føde”). The suffix is used to form both concrete
3.7 Infinitive and verbal nouns nouns (in the neuter) and abstract nouns (in the com-
mon).
The infinitive may be defined as a verb form that is equiv-
alent to a noun syntactically. The Danish infinitive may • the verbal stem with no ending: fald “fall” (: falde),
be used as the subject or object of a verb like in En- tab “loss” (: tabe), kast “throw” (: kaste), håb “hope”
glish: at rejse er at leve “to travel is to live”, jeg elsker (: håbe), normally as a neuter noun.
at spise kartofler “I love to eat potatoes”. Furthermore,
• the verbal stem with some change of vowel or con-
the Danish infinitive may also be governed by a prepo-
sonant: gang “walk(ing)" (: gå), stand “state” (: stå),
sition (where English normally has the gerund): han tog
sang “song” (: synge), dåb “baptism” (: døbe). They
livet af sig ved at springe ud af et vindue “he killed himself
normally have the common gender.
by jumping out of a window”.
The infinitive normally has the marker at, pronounced ɑd̥ • the suffix -(e)st: fangst “catching” (: fange), ankomst
or in normal speech ʌ, thereby being homonymous with “arrival” (: ankomme), hyldest “ovation” (: hylde).
the conjunction og “and”, with which it is sometimes con- The type takes the common gender.
fused in spelling. The bare infinitive is used after the
modal verbs kunne, ville, skulle, måtte, turde, burde. • the suffix -tion, -sion: funktion “function” (: fun-
gere), korrektion “correction” (: korrigere), eksplo-
A rarer form is the verbal noun with the ending -en (not to sion “explosion” (: eksplodere). This type is re-
be confused with the definite article) which is used when stricted to stems of Latin origin (which normally
the infinitive carries a pronoun, an indefinite article or an have the suffix -ere in the verbal forms, cf. German
adjective: hans evindelige skrigen var enerverende, “his -ieren). They take the common gender.
never-ending crying was enervating”, der var en løben og
råben på gangene, “people ran and cried in the hall”. This • the suffix "-n": “råben” “shouting” (: “råbe”),
use has a connotation of something habitual and is often “løben” “running” (: “løbe”). Takes the common
used in a negative sense. It is used in formal informa- gender.
5.2 Agreement 5
There are three forms of the adjective in Danish: The Danish adjectives and adverbs are inflected accord-
ing to the three degrees of comparison. The comparative
has the ending -ere (sometimes -re) and the superlative
1. basic form or common, used with singular words
has the ending -st (sometimes -est): e.g. hurtig, hur-
of the common gender (“n-words”).
tigere, hurtigst, “quick, -er, -est"; fræk, frækkere, frækkest,
en billig bog, “a cheap book"; en stor “impertinent/audacious/kinky, -er, -est"; lang, længere,
dreng, “a big boy” længst (with umlaut), “long, -er, -est”. The choice be-
tween -st and -est is determined by the syllable structure
2. t-form or neuter, used with singular words of the (to avoid uncomfortable consonant clusters), whereas the
neuter gender (“t-words”) and as an adverb. variant -re is used only in a few frequent comparatives.
6 6 REFERENCES
In many cases, especially in longer words and words of the adverb is essentially different from that of the
a Latin or Greek origin, the comparative and superlative adjective (e.g. endelig, “finally, at last” ~ endeligt,
are formed with the adverbs mere and mest instead: e.g. “definitively”). In other cases, the t-less form is pre-
intelligent, mere intelligent, mest intelligent. ferred when the adverb qualifies an adjective (e.g.
The comparative is inflexible, and it is not used with the væsentlig(t) større, considerably larger”).
definite article (in which case Danish uses the superlative • The comparative and superlative of some frequent
instead). The conjunction of comparison is end, “than”. adjectives have umlaut: e.g. lang, længere, længst,
The superlative is inflected like the positive (the t-form “long, longer, longest"; ung, yngre, yngst, “young,
being identical to the n-form); længst, længste. When younger, youngest; stor, større, størst, “big, bigger,
used as a predicate, the basic form is used instead of the biggest.
e-form: hans ben er længst, “his legs are the longest”.
• One adjective is suppletive: lille, “little, small” (n-
and t-form and definite e-form) ~ små (plural e-
5.5 Irregularities form), småt (adverb t-form). Six adjectives are sup-
pletive in the three degrees of comparison: god,
The inflection of some adjectives is irregular: bedre, bedst, “good, better, best"; dårlig, værre,
værst, “bad, worse, worst"; gammel, ældre, ældst,
“old, older, oldest”, mange, flere, flest; “many, more,
• Ny (new) and fri (free) take -t and optionally -e, even
most"; megen/-et, mere, mest, “much, more, most";
though they end in vowels.
lille / lidt, mindre, mindst “little, less / smaller, least /
• Several common adjectives with the suffix -s (histor- smallest”. Irregular, but not suppletive are få, færre,
ically the ending of the genitive) are inflexible, e.g. færrest, “few, fewer, fewest” and nær, nærmere,
fælles, “common” (: fælle, “fellow”); ens, “identical” nærmest, “close, closer, closest”.
(: en “one”); træls, “annoying” (: træl, “slave”) (one
also hears trælst, trælse).
• Adjectives with the very common -sk ending are
6 References
special. If they are polysyllabic or refer to a coun-
try, geographic area or ethnic group, they never take [1] Herslund 2001.
-t. Et klassisk stykke (a classical piece), et svensk hus [2] Haberland 1994, p. 325.
(a Swedish house). Otherwise the -t is optional. Et
friskt pust, or et frisk pust (a breath of fresh air). [3] Lundskaer-Nielsen & Holmes 2015, p. 53-60.
7.2 Images
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