Norwegian articles
From UniLang Wiki
This page gives an overview on Norwegian articles:
Indefinite
In singular the indefinite articles are words preceding the noun, like as in English "a".
- feminine: ei
- masculine: en
- neuter: et
There is no plural indefinite article.
Definite
In the definite forms, articles exist primarily as suffixes. (See the following section Compounds - ... for exeptions)
- feminine: -a
- masculine: -en
- neuter: -et
- plural, all genders: -(e)ne
- plural neuter (alternate) -a
If the noun in its basic (singular indefinite) form ends with -er, the bracketed e in the plural ending is omitted. (1)
If the noun has an ending -e, that letter will be removed before appending the suffix. (2)
In neuter you can choose whether to use -(e)ne or -a. The normal usage is a mix.
Examples:
- M: en lærer (teacher) - læreren - lærerne [see (1)]
- F: ei jente (girl)- jenta [see (2)] - jentene
- N: et hus (house)- huset - husene
Some neuter nouns lend themselves to the common plural ending, and with others the -a ending is more natural. It is OK to mix them (use both in the same text) but this should be done with care. Consider the following example:
Barn (child) and skjerf (scarf) are both neuter.
- Barna tok på seg skjerfene sine. Common usage. Perfectly OK.
- Barnene tok på seg skjerfa sine. Sounds awkward in most dialects. Still grammatically correct.
Compounds - the distinct definite article
If the noun is preceded by an adjective, we get what you may call "double definite" or "split definite" (linguists out there, please edit to get the correct term). The suffix remains, but in addition the adjective (or adjective phrase) is preceded by the definite article as a distinct word. (Note the similarities between the distinct article and the suffix.)
- feminine/masculine: den
- neuter: det
- plural, all genders: de
Examples:
- M: den flinke læreren
- N: det store huset
- PL: de vakre jentene
Note The Norwegian language has two official forms which differ somewhat in grammar and ortography. The above is pertaining to the prevalent bokmål. (The other is nynorsk). In addition there are numerous norwegians using a more conservative, now obsolete form, riksmål. Riksmål looks a lot like bokmål, but has only two genders.
Although the riksmål is no longer one of the official language forms, the usage is accepted.
