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The Loom of Language

exist m hterature have no existence in spoken Swedish or in correspon-
dence In literary Swedish the plural of the present tense is identical
with the infinitive., and the past of strong veibs has plural forms which
ena in os some being very irregular, e g for gd (go) we have the two past
forms gick-gingo and analogous ones for fd (may) The plural flexion of
the \erb is never used in speech 1 he final -de of the past tense-form is
often silent The infinitive and the corresponding present tense-form of

ENGLISH
	SWEDISH
	DANISH
	ENGLISH
	SWEDISH
	DANISH

animal
	djur
	Dyr
	floor
	golv
	Gulv

egg
	agg
	Aeg
	hotel
	hotel!
	Hotel

life
	LIV
		house
	HUS
	
people
	FOLK
		roof
	tak
	Tag

Pig
	SVIN
		table
	BORD
	
sheep
	far               Faar
		window
	fonster
	Vindue

blood
	BLOD
		country
	LAND
	
bone
	BEN
		language
	sprak
	Sprog

ear
	ora
	0ie
	letter
	BREV
	
eye
	oga
	0je
	light
	ljus
	Lys

hair
	har
	Haar
	name
	namn
	Navn

heart
	hjarta        j Hjerte
		weather
	vader
	Vejr

leg
	BEN
		word
	ORD
	
water
	vatten
	Vand
	year
	ar
	Aar

many verbs is contracted as in Norwegian, e g be (bedja), request, bh
(bhva)> become, dra (draga), carry, ge (gzva)> give, ha (hava), have, ta
(tagd) take Similarly stall contracts to skas Eder to Er (you or your),
broder (brother) to bror

The terminal article and the fiexional passive are both highly charac-
teristic of the Scandinavian clan. Another of its peculiarities is a booby-
trap for the beginner, because English, like Dutch or German, has no
equivalent for it Scandinavian dialects have special forms of the
possessive adjective of the third person (analogous to the Latin suus)
corresponding to the reflexive pronoun stg They are sm (sing common),
sttt or sit (neut. sing ), stna or sine (plur ) in accordance with the gender
and number of the thing possessed We must always (and only) use
them when they refer back to the subject of the verb, e g

Jag har ham bok (I have his book)

Han har sin bok (He has his book)

Jag besokte hennes bror (I visited her brother)

H-m ar*kar �rr barn (She loves her child)

Jeg har hans Bog
Plan har sin Bog.
Jeg besogte hendts Broder
Hun elsker sit Barn