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Den kriminelle begravde beviset Topic is solved

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User avatar
weerwater

Den kriminelle begravde beviset

Post by weerwater »

Still dealing with the Law2 skill, I encountered this weird form of a noun.

Den kriminellen, I would translate as that criminal;
Kriminellen I would translate as 'the criminal' and en kriminelle would be 'a criminal' in my understanding of things.

But where does 'den' come from in this sentence? Any ideas?

FVeldig commented:

'beviset' is a noun, so the sentence does have a noun :)
There isn't a rule saying that the subject of a sentence has to be a noun:
"Red is a [colour/color]." = "[Rødt/Rød] er en farge."
'red' is the subject, but it's still an adjective. The definite form, however, require a noun in English, but this isn't needed in Norwegian:
"The red one is big." = "Den røde er [stor/svær]."

But I don't get it. What are the rules here?

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liv
Norway

Re: Den kriminelle begravde beviset

Post by liv »

weerwater wrote: Sun Feb 27, 2022 9:32 pm

Still dealing with the Law2 skill, I encountered this weird form of a noun.

Den kriminellen, I would translate as that criminal;
Kriminellen I would translate as 'the criminal' and en kriminelle would be 'a criminal' in my understanding of things.

But where does 'den' come from in this sentence? Any ideas?

FVeldig commented:

'beviset' is a noun, so the sentence does have a noun :)
There isn't a rule saying that the subject of a sentence has to be a noun:
"Red is a [colour/color]." = "[Rødt/Rød] er en farge."
'red' is the subject, but it's still an adjective. The definite form, however, require a noun in English, but this isn't needed in Norwegian:
"The red one is big." = "Den røde er [stor/svær]."

But I don't get it. What are the rules here?

So here is an example of an adjective being used as the subject of a sentence. In that case the rule is that you use DEN in definite form
En kriminell, den kriminelle,
En ansatt, den ansatte

User avatar
weerwater

Re: Den kriminelle begravde beviset

Post by weerwater »

Takk Liv,

Det er klart. Jeg må ikke gjøre ting vanskeligere enn de allerede er.( ... )

I think my problem is with the article. And more specific the double (or triple) definite article in Norwegian.

Yesterday I was at the local library and found in the "Norsk Grammatikk" (2015) Par 5.3 Enkelt og dobbeltbestemmelse:

  • Dobbeltbestemmelse er et naturlig trekk ved norsk talespråk.
  • På norsk setter vi ofte substantivet i bestemt form etter et adjektiv med adjektivets bestemte artikkel: den gamle mannen.
  • Det er også vanlig i forbindelse med foranstilt demonstrativt pronomen: den saken.

https://www.riksmalsforbundet.no/gramma ... tiklene/3/

Indeed that small remark "med adjektivets bestemte artikkel" made me realize that things sometimes just are what they are.

Edit 17. mars: Nice explanation by Ullestad on https://grammatikk.com/pdf/SubstAdjektiv.pdf

Last edited by weerwater on Thu Mar 17, 2022 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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liv
Norway

Re: Den kriminelle begravde beviset

Post by liv »

Yes sometimes we just have to accept it and learn it

User avatar
AlinaVolana
Norway

Re: Den kriminelle begravde beviset

Post by AlinaVolana »

It's not even really a case of double definition, it's just that "kriminell" is the adjective "criminal", so it uses the definite article of adjectives. The noun "criminal" is "forbryter" or "lovbryter" (the latter literally translates as "lawbreaker").

Double definition would be if we added in the implied noun: "Den kriminelle personen".

We could also go with a bit of redundancy: "Den kriminelle forbryteren". ("The criminal criminal")

An alternate translation of the sentence, using the noun instead: "Forbryteren begravde beviset." - No adjective article.

If you were to say "den forbryteren", it would indeed be "that criminal", as you would expect with a noun.

Native speaker of Norwegian | Using English on a daily basis | Learning Japanese on Duolingo

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