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Lesson Eight.

1. Dative of weak substantives

In singular, the dative form of weak nouns does not differ from the accusative. In plural, the common ending -on is used:

Excercise 8.1.
Translate into Nynorn:

I’m giving food to dogs. He’s telling daughters that they are beautiful. Boys are sleeping in houses. Boats are full of fish (pl.). He’s coming from Faroe Islands (Førøjar f.pl.), not Orkney (Orknøjar f.pl.). Cats are sleeping under cars.

2. Past tense of weak verbs.

Weak verbs form their past tense in a much simpler way than the strong ones, pretty much like regular verbs in English. The stem of the verb adds a special suffix:

1. The verbs in class 1 (gera) add -d after voiced consonants (r,m,n,l,v,b,g) or -t following d or unvoiced consonants (t,s,p,t,k).
2. The verbs in class 2 (kalla) add the suffix -að.

The suffix is followed by the ending of past tense: -i in sg. and -u in pl.

1. gera: eg gerdi 'I did/made' – vi gerdu 'we did/made'
senda: eg senti 'I sent' – vi sentu 'we sent'
hjålpa: eg hjålpti [jolti] 'I helped' – vi hjålptu [joltu] 'we helped'

2. kalla: eg kallaði 'I called' – vi kallaðu 'we called'

NB. The ending -aði sounds as [aji], -aðu – as [avu]. (The same pronunciation of the endings is used in Faroese.)

The verb bua ‘to live (somewhere), inhabit’ has a strong present, but weak past: eg buði [buvi], vi buðu [buvu].

Exercise 8.2.
Translate into Nynorn (see also exercise 5.3):

A boy called a dog. A girl saved horses. She had dogs. We didn't have dogs. I saved you (sg.). You (pl.) visited us. He built houses. A boy bought balls.

3. Questions and interrogative pronouns

Nynorn has at its disposal the following interrogative pronouns:

hvar? – who? which?, neuter hvat(na)? – what?
hvarna? – where?, hvagar?/hvartil? – whereto? hvaðan?/hvarfrå? – wherefrom?
ner? – when?
hvu? – how
hvi? – why?

Hvat? and hvatna? are more or less interchangeable, although the latter variant adds more expression.

The word order in an interrogative sentence is the reverse of the normal. The phrase begins with the interrogative pronoun to be followed by the verb in 3 sg., subject and the rest, if any. As with negation (see Lesson X), there is no word for the English auxiliary verbs do(es), did (as in the case of the English verbs to be, shall, should etc).

Ner kemer du? When do you come?
Hvarna ligga dinar kør? Where are your cows lying?
Hvar kallar å mog? Who is calling me?

Exercise 8.3.
Translate into Nynorn:

When do they go? Which boat is yours? Where is your brother? How big is their house? Where are you going (fara) to? Where do you come from? Why is your child not sleeping?

Reading

Hvatna heder du? Eg hedi Harald. Hvarna bur du? Eg bu i Skålavågi. Hvar er her veð djer? Dað er Magnus, min vin. Hvarna kemer hann frå? Hann kemer frå Kollafirdi. Hvaron driva di at? Eg er sjofør og Magnus er fiskemann. Hvar mål tala di? Eg tala hjetmål (nynorn), engelsk og norsk, men Magnus talar nynorn, engelsk og tvartri kinesisk. Hvi talar Magnus kinesisk? (Hvu ber dað til at Magnus talar kinesisk?) Hann fur en dag til Kina til at veða fisk og lerdi dar kinesisk. Dað var mukkið spennandi i Kina, hans ferdalek stud lengi og hans skip fekk mukkið af fiski. Der vunnu dag og nått og fingu stura løn. Der furu så veð sinon pengon vester og derra bånn vuru mukkið glað at sjå sina feder atter at dir komu hem.

Vocabulary:

Skålavåg nm. – Scalloway
vin nm. (2) – friend
sjofør nm. – driver
fiskemann nm. – fisherman
mål nn. – language
tala vw. (2) – to speak
hjetmål nn. (s) - Shetland N(yn)orn
nynorn nf. (s2) – Nynorn
engelsk nf. (s2) – English language
norsk nf. (s2) – Norwegian language
kinesisk nf. (s2) – Chinese language
(engelsk, norsk and kinesisk also can be used as respective adjectives; in this case they take adjective endings)
Kina nn. (indecl.) - China
veða vw. (past veddi) – to catch (fish); to hunt
tvartri adv. (from tver-tri '2-3') – a little, a bit
mukkið adv. – much
hvu ber dað til at... ? – how come ... ? lit. how is it possible that... ?
spennandi adv. – exciting; lit. constrained
ferdalek nm. (s1) – journey, trip
standa vs. (6) – to endure; lit. to stand
fisk nm. (s1) – fish
mukkið av + D – a lot of
løn nf. (s2) – salary
så – then, so
pengar nm. pl. (s1) – money
vester adv. – west, to the west
glað adj. – glad, happy
atter – after

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