Page:A simplified grammar of the Danish language.djvu/61

Rh the noun or pronoun which governs it; as, Er hun syg? 'Is she ill?' Kommer Manden ikke i Dag? 'Is the man not coming to-day?'

The tendency of modern Dano-Norwegian is to reject in common parlance the distinctive terminations of the plural in the present indicative; as, De har Ret, 'They are (is) right;' ikke i Stand til at komme, 'We are (is) not in a position to come;' Gutterne löber op ad Gaden, 'The boys are running (runs) up the street.'

A similar process of simplification is apparent in regard to the tenses of verbs, which in the spoken language are, with the exception of a few imperative and optative expressions, reduced to the indicative mood, of which the plural form is seldom used. This merging of the two numbers under the singular has been carried especially far by the grammarian Grundtvig, who writes vi kan, skal, vil etc., although the plural forms of these auxiliaries are still very generally used, as vi kunne, skulle, ville, etc.

Distinctions of persons which have been lost in modern Danish verbs are occasionally employed in poetry, as du vilt, which represents the Old Northern form of the second person singular. A similar reversion to the old mother tongue is to be traced in such plurals as drukke for drak (drikke, 'to drink'), svande for svandt (svinde, 'to vanish').

The infinitive of verbs may be used as a gerund; as, De får ingen Nytte ved at være altfor strenge, 'They will gain nothing by being too strict.' It is also used elliptically, with a transposition of the preposition; as, Han er slet at arbejde for, 'He is bad to work for;' Det er vanskeligt at