{"id":209,"date":"2022-09-09T08:09:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.dansk.ninja\/?page_id=209"},"modified":"2023-02-22T08:09:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T08:09:57","slug":"adjectives","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dansk.ninja\/index.php\/grammar-descriptions\/adjectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Adjectives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about people, objects and every other thing in the universe, we need nouns to name them. But when we want to specify the characteristics of those items, we use adjectives. An example would be \u201ca clown\u201d. You are perhaps now picturing your idea of a typical clown. But if I tell you, that \u201cthe clown is angry<\/strong>\u201d, or \u201cthe clown\u2019s nose is blue<\/strong>\u201d the adjectives \u201cangry\u201d and \u201cblue\u201d add information about the clown, and that changes the image in your head. The use of adjectives in Danish is made difficult by the fact that their endings change depending on different characteristics of the entity (person, object etc.) that they describe. Those characteristics are: number (singular vs. plural), grammatical gender (n-gender vs. t-gender) and definiteness (definite or indefinite). Let\u2019s have a look at these grammatical categories in turn and how they are expressed in adjectives (see also my explanation of nouns).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using the term gender for noun classes in Danish is a bit of a misnomer, since grammatical gender is not tied to biological gender (anymore), but rather is assigned randomly (it seems) to all nouns in the Danish language. This means that you have to either know the gender of a noun or you\u2019d have to look it up in the dictionary before you can know the correct form of the adjective. The examples in (1) illustrate the use of adjectives with nouns of different genders. Note, that gender is only relevant with singular nouns – see more on plural farther below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a. N-gender<\/strong>                                                         <\/p>\n\n\n\n

en stor lejlighed          a large appartment     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

en ung kvinde             a young woman          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

en hvid cykel               a white bicycle            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

b. T-gender<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

et stor-t hus                 a large house<\/p>\n\n\n\n

et ung-t individ            a young individual<\/p>\n\n\n\n

et hvid-t k\u00f8ret\u00f8j           a white vehicle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As shown, N-gender does not add an ending to the adjective, while T-gender adds a -t ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Number<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The category of number is basically about whether there is one or more of the entity referred to by the noun. Compare the plural examples in (2) to those above in (1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2)         <\/p>\n\n\n\n

to stor-e lejligheder     two large apartments   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

to stor-e huse              two large houses<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to ung-e kvinder          two young women<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to ung-e individer        two young individuals<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to hvid-e cykler           two white bicycles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to hvid-e k\u00f8ret\u00f8jer      two white vehicles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As shown, adjectives are marked as plural by an -e ending, and the gender of the noun is no longer relevant. (Most of the nouns are marked for plural by an -(e)r ending, only one by the -e ending, but this is not tied in any way to gender, see more on this in my treatment of nouns.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Definiteness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Definiteness refers to whether the entity can be identified by us while communicating. There can be a number of reasons why we might, or might not, be able to identify the item(s) that we\u2019re talking about, or we may not care. For instance in the sentence, \u201chand me two large oranges\u201d, \u201ctwo large oranges\u201d is indefinite, because we don\u2019t know specifically, and perhaps don\u2019t care, which two oranges we\u2019ll be handed, as long as they\u2019re large. While in \u201chand me the<\/strong> two large oranges\u201d we know which ones we\u2019re asking for – perhaps because there are only two oranges in the fruit bowl, or perhaps there are only two large ones and then a number of smaller ones. The point is, that adding \u201cthe\u201d indicates that both the speaker and the listener can unequivocally identify the objects of the conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Contrast the examples of definite adjectives in both singular and plural with the indefinite ones in (1) and (2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3)         den stor-e lejlighed     the large appartment <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de stor-e lejligheder    the large apparments<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            det stor-e hus              the large house<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de stor-e huse             the large houses<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            den ung-e kvinde        the young woman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de ung-e kvinder         the young women<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            det ung-e individ         the young individual<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de ung-e individer       the young individuals<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            den hvid-e cykel          the white bicycle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de hvid-e cykler          the white bicycles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            det hvid-e k\u00f8ret\u00f8j        the white vehicle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            de hvid-e k\u00f8ret\u00f8jer     the white vehicles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As shown, adjectives are marked as definite by an -e ending, regardless of their number and gender. This makes definiteness the most confusing grammatical category related to adjectives (and nouns), because it is easy to confuse the definite -E with the plural -E. That they are not the same is proven by the example pairs in (3) where both singular and plural nouns use the same -e ending on the adjective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Note also, that the definite ending of nouns like kvinde-n and hus-et can not be combined with adjectives. Instead we must use the definite pronouns den\/det\/de as was shown in (3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is the case with all of the major grammatical categories, there exist a number of irregular adjectives. These are shown in (4) (partly inspired by Anders Basby’s description of adjectives in Danish <\/a>(see also here for a version in Danish)<\/a> ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Adjectives that end in a syllable with a short vowel get an extra consonant before an -e ending:\n