41 Comments
We have learned "et æble'. So, why is it now "en mands æble" instead of "et mands æble"?
Because the article needs accord with man and not with apple=>en mand/ manden. Imagine it was "Two men's apple", there would be two guys and one apple. Same in danish. The genitive works as an article in this case, so to speak.
Thanks, that's a short version of the genitive lesson which followed shortly after I ran into this one :-) As I understand them now, the rules seem similar to the Dutch rules but different from for instance the French ones.
Yeah, French and Spanish and many other latin languages don't really have a genitive, so both nouns should have their own determinant/article. I guess genitive is common/similar in the germanics.
26
No genitive in French. I remember when I first learned to use it in German, I was like "Wow, this is so easy!" when compared to the use of aaaallll the determinants in French... And it makes for shorter, clearer ways of saying the same thing...
- 139
PMFJI, I can't recall Dutch using a genitive in this way. What rule are you referring to?
no its true in for example in dutch its het kind (the child) and de fiets (the bicycle) if you want to say the child's bicycle you say het kind's fiets and not de kind's fiets idk if there is a specific rule for that (im dutch so it kinda goes naturally ) but i really hope this helps and if not sorry!
Interesting. Thanks for that as the Dutch DL hasn't covered this yet, only 'van mij' or 'van de vrouw' etc to denote ownership.
"mands" = "(a) man's" "mandens" = "the man's" It's about indefinite and definite article.
