| Grammar Notes: Sentence: En ku hviler på en eng. I det fjerne kan du se en innsjø. Translation: A cow is resting in a meadow. In the distance you can see a lake. Word by word 1. En – indefinite article, common gender singular, “a/an”. Used before many masculine and feminine nouns in Bokmål. 2. ku – noun, feminine, “cow”. It can be used with en or ei in Bokmål. 3. hviler – verb, present tense, “rests / is resting”. Infinitive: å hvile. 4. på – preposition, “on”. In English, “in a meadow” is more natural here. 5. en – indefinite article, “a/an”. 6. eng – noun, common gender, “meadow”. 7. I – preposition, “in”. Capitalised here only because it starts the sentence; the normal form is i. 8. det – neuter singular definite article in this phrase, “the”. Elsewhere it can mean “it/that”. 9. fjerne – adjective, definite form of fjern “distant/far”. In det fjerne it means “in the distance”. There is also a verb å fjerne “to remove”, but that is not used here. 10. kan – modal verb, present tense, “can”. Infinitive: å kunne. 11. du – pronoun, “you” singular, informal. 12. se – verb, bare infinitive after kan, “see”. Infinitive: å se. 13. en – indefinite article, “a/an”. 14. innsjø – noun, masculine, “lake”. Grammar The first sentence follows the basic Norwegian main-clause order: subject + finite verb + rest. En ku is the subject, hviler is the present-tense verb, and på en eng is a prepositional phrase. Norwegian present-tense verbs do not change for person: jeg hviler, du hviler, ku hviler, etc. The second sentence begins with the adverbial phrase I det fjerne. In Norwegian main clauses, the finite verb must come in second position, so kan comes before du: kan du se, not du kan se. This is called V2 word order. After a modal verb such as kan, the main verb appears as a bare infinitive without å: kan du se. Related words - hvile – noun, “a rest”; hvilte – past tense, “rested”; hvilt – past participle, “rested”. - ku – kyr – “cows”. - eng – enger – “meadows”; enga/engen – “the meadow”. - innsjø – innsjøer – “lakes”; innsjøen – “the lake”. - fjern – fjernt – neuter form, “distant”; fjernere – “farther”; fjernest – “farthest”. - se – ser – present tense, “sees/is seeing”; så – past tense, “saw”; sett – past participle, “seen”. - kunne – kan – present, “can”; kunne – past, “could”; kunnet – past participle, “been able to”. |
