Page:A simplified grammar of the Swedish language.djvu/59

Rh labour good?' gif äpplet åt honom, (or gif honom äpplet,) 'give him the apple.'

The objective may be used with an infinitive, as in Latin, in the place of a subjective with its predicate; as, Jag anser min skyldighet, 'I consider that I am doing my duty.'

In regard to the five declensions of nouns adopted in modern Swedish, it may be well to draw attention to the following points:—

1. The First Declension includes all feminine nouns ending in a. Of these, some were masculines in the older forms of the language, and had in some of their cases the termination u (o,) which is still met with; as, närvaro, 'presence;' frånvaro, 'absence.' Some of these words may be used both with the present feminine and the older masculine termination; as, ådra or åder, 'vein.'

2. The Second Declension, which includes both masculines and feminines, has upwards of 600 of the former gender which are monosyllabic, and end in a consonant. Some have no plural; as, gråt, 'weeping;' kål, 'cabbage.' Most words in sel are without the plural; as, känsel, 'sense,' 'perception;' trängsel, 'crowd.' Moder and dotter, belonging to this declension, change the radical vowel in the plural, as mödrar, 'mothers;' döttrar, 'daughters.' Here it may be remarked that many words belonging to the other declensions similarly make their plural in an Umlaut, or change the radical vowel; as, bonde, pl. bönder, 'peasants;' fader, pl. fäder, 'fathers;' broder, pl. bröder, 'brothers;' etc.