Norwegian A Comprehensive Grammar Norwegian: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to modern Norwegian (the Bokmål standard). The Grammar is an essential source for the serious student of Norwegian, and for students of compar- ative linguistics. It is ideal for use in colleges, universities and adult classes of all types. The volume is organised to promote a thorough understanding of Norwegian grammar. It presents the complexities of Norwegian in a concise and read- able form. Explanations are full, clear and free of jargon. Throughout, the emphasis is on Norwegian as used by present-day native speakers. An extensive index, numbered paragraphs, cross-references and summary charts provide readers with easy access to the information they require. Philip Holmes is Reader Emeritus in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hull, UK, and co-author of four grammars of Swedish and Danish for Routledge, as well as Colloquial Swedish (2016). Hans-Olav Enger is Professor of Scandinavian Linguistics at Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier at Oslo University, Norway. He has edited Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift, is currently editor of Maal og Minne and is the author of many articles and book chapters on the Norwegian language, as well as co-author of Innføring i norsk grammatikk – Morfologi og syntaks. Routledge Comprehensive Grammars Comprehensive Grammars are available for the following languages: Bengali Burmese Cantonese Chinese Catalan Cantonese Danish Dutch Finnish French Creoles Greek Indonesian Japanese Kazakh Korean Modern Welsh Modern Written Arabic Norwegian Panjabi Persian Polish Slovene Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Other titles in this series can be found at www.routledge.com/languages/ series/SE0550 Norwegian A Comprehensive Grammar Philip Holmes and Hans-Olav Enger First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Philip Holmes and Hans-Olav Enger The right of Philip Holmes and Hans-Olav Enger to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Holmes, Philip, 1944– author. | Enger, Hans–Olav, 1965– author. Title: Norwegian : a comprehensive grammar / Philip Holmes and Hans–Olav Enger. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2018] | Series: Routledge comprehensive grammars | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053103 | ISBN 9780415831352 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780415831369 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781351059831 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Norwegian language—Grammar—Study and teaching. | Norwegian language—Study and teaching. Classification: LCC PD2623 .H575 2018 | DDC 439.8/25—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053103 ISBN: 978-0-415-83135-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-83136-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-05983-1 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon and Gill Sans by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Preface ix Symbols and abbreviations xi Introduction: What is Norwegian? 1 Chapter 1 Nouns 8 1.1 Introduction 8 1.2 An outline of gender 11 1.3 Miscellaneous points of gender 20 1.4 Plural noun forms – the declensions 25 1.5 Nouns with no plural form or no singular form, collective nouns and nouns expressing quantity 40 1.6 Differences in number between English and Norwegian 44 1.7 Noun homonyms 45 1.8 The genitive 46 1.9 The form of the indefinite article 52 1.10 The form of the definite article 53 1.11 The use of the indefinite and definite article and the noun without article 59 Chapter 2 Adjectives 69 2.1 Form and order 69 2.2 The indefinite (strong) declension 82 2.3 The definite declension 91 2.4 Adjectival nouns 99 2.5 Comparison of adjectives (gradation) 104 v Contents Chapter 3 Numerals 117 3.1 Forms of numerals 117 3.2 Cardinal numbers 122 3.3 Ordinal numbers 127 3.4 Fractions 129 3.5 Dates 130 3.6 Telling the time 132 Chapter 4 Pronouns and determiners 135 4.1 Introduction 135 4.2 Personal pronouns 135 4.3 Determiners 153 4.4 Possessives 162 4.5 Reflexive (and related) pronouns 167 4.6 Quantifiers 173 4.7 Indefinite pronouns and evasion strategies 188 4.8 Interrogative pronouns 191 4.9 Other pronouns and determiners 197 Chapter 5 Verbs 203 5.1 Introduction 203 5.2 Conjugations 205 5.3 The use of the verb forms 224 5.4 Mood and modality 257 5.5 Transitive, intransitive and reflexive verbs 269 5.6 –s forms of the verb and the passive 275 5.7 Compound verbs 282 5.8 Some problem verbs 289 Chapter 6 Adverbs 296 6.1 Introduction 296 6.2 Meaning and function 297 6.3 Form 305 6.4 Location and movement 312 6.5 Translating adverbs 313 vi Chapter 7 Prepositions 320 Contents 7.1 Introduction 320 7.2 Prepositions and adverbs 324 7.3 Notes on some common simplex prepositions 325 7.4 Some morphologically compound prepositions 340 7.5 Some common multi- word prepositions 342 7.6 From English to Norwegian – prepositions of time 347 7.7 English ‘of’ 355 Chapter 8 Interjections 359 8.1 Introduction 359 8.2 Response particles: ja, jo, nei 360 8.3 Expressions of feeling, exclamations 363 8.4 Polite expressions 364 8.5 Onomatopoetic expressions and expletives 366 8.6 Other interjections 367 Chapter 9 Conjunctions and subjunctions 368 9.1 Introduction 368 9.2 Conjunctions 373 9.3 Subjunctions 377 9.4 Other subordinators 383 9.5 Some problem conjunctions and subjunctions 385 Chapter 10 Sentence structure and word order 391 10.1 Introduction 391 10.2 Phrases 392 10.3 Clause elements 401 10.4 The order of clause elements 411 10.5 Differences between main clause and subordinate clause positions 417 10.6 Order within positions 417 10.7 Main clause transformations 423 10.8 Subordinate clauses 435 10.9 Emphasis 443 10.10 Ellipsis 449 vii Contents Chapter 11 Word formation 454 11.1 Introduction 454 11.2 Compounding 458 11.3 Derivation 469 11.4 Other patterns 485 Chapter 12 Orthography 491 12.1 Symbols and sounds 491 12.2 Spelling 493 12.3 Upper- case and lower- case letters 498 12.4 Miscellaneous 504 Chapter 13 Punctuation 509 13.1 Introduction 509 13.2 Addresses 519 13.3 Dates and times 520 Appendix 1: Linguistic terms 522 Appendix 2: English-Norwegian and Norwegian-English linguistic terms 531 Bibliography 540 Index 543 viii Preface Our aims in writing this book are both to describe the structure and usage of contemporary written and spoken Norwegian Bokmål and to provide a source of reference in English for the more advanced student or even teacher so as to help non-native learners develop fluency when using Bokmål. As far as we are aware, this is the first attempt to write a truly comprehen- sive English-language grammar of Bokmål. Because of restrictions on time and the length of this book, we have sadly not simultaneously been able to cover Norwegian Nynorsk. A substantial index is provided to both Norwegian and English key words as well as grammatical concepts. We have attempted to employ a terminology that is comprehensible to the learner whose mother tongue is not Norwegian and one not too far removed from the established terminology used in Norwegian language grammars which such a learner may also encounter. Where we have dif- fered in our usage from these standard works of reference in Norwegian, such as the incomparable Norsk referansegrammatikk (NRG), we have pointed this out. Bokmål is not uniform. Unlike Swedish and Danish, Norwegian has no standard written language, and we have tried to steer a middle course in guiding the learner through the minefields of on the one hand ultra- conservative and on the other ultra-radical views respectively on Bokmål. A book of this kind requires hundreds of examples. Many have been taken from the Oslo Corpus in order to ensure high frequency. In some cases, these have been adapted to help in the learning/teaching process. The English translations are our own. The book is intended to be comparative, and our own translations have been provided for the vast majority of examples as an additional aid in the ix task of learning how to render Norwegian accurately into English. Preface Norwegian: A Comprehensive Grammar is not of course primarily intended for Norwegians, but for intermediate and advanced foreign learners of Norwegian, and therefore concentrates on the questions these learners fre- quently raise, in some cases with their teachers, and it is our hope that it may provide some answers to these. We are indebted to scholars who have written on Scandinavian grammars before us (not only those listed in the bibliography), to our teachers, col- leagues and students. Philip Holmes and Hans-Olav Enger Kineton, England, and Oslo, Norway, 2017 x Symbols and abbreviations (at), teat(e)ret word or part of a word is or can be omitted or added; alternative form fnyste/fnøs alternatives *mellom klokka åtte til ti incorrect usage –C ends in a consonant –V ends in a vowel –ske, –inne, etc.