Page:A simplified grammar of the Danish language.djvu/75

Rh The composition of nouns may be made in various ways, and more especially as follows:—

1. Without any change in the words; as, Stuedör, Stue, 'room;' Dör, 'door.'

2. By the rejection of the final vowel of the first word; as, Kvindfolk, Kvinde, 'woman;' Folk, 'folk,' 'kind.'

3. By the addition of e to the first word; as, Fåreuld, Får, 'sheep;' Uld, 'wool.'

4. By the addition of s to the first word; as, Mindesmærke, 'monument;' Minde, 'memory;' Mærke, 'mark.'

5. By the addition of n to the first word; as, Rosenbusk, Rose, 'rose;' Busk, 'bush.'

6. By the addition of er to the first word; as, Nattergal, 'nightingale;' Nat, 'night,' at gale, 'to crow,' &c.

In regard to some of these, and other forms of termination, it may be observed that we have here survivals of older Northern modes of declension; thus, Náttar is the Old Northern genitive singular of Nátt, 'night,' whence the word Nattergal has derived its now obsolete genitive termination of er.

Similarly we have often to look to the Old Northern for an explanation of compound words, either or both of whose component parts may be lost in the modern speech; as, Davre, 'first meal,' 'breakfast;' Nadvere, 'supper,' (especially in the sense of the Lord's Supper); Solhverv, 'solstice.' In the first of these we have a survival of