Page:A simplified grammar of the Danish language.djvu/56

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danish grammar.

landers, and in Old Northern, where fimtin, sekstin, &c., 'fifty,' 'sixty,' &c., indicated the number with all possible conciseness. Up to one hundred the lesser numbers precede the greater; as, en og fyrretyve, '41;' after one hundred they follow it, as hundrede og femten, '115.'

The ordinal numbers are formed by adding ende, nde, or de to the numeral, according to the final letter of the word; as, syv, 'seven,' syvende, 'seventh;' tyve, 'twenty;' tyvende, 'twentieth;' tretten, 'thirteen;' trettende, 'thirteenth.' The exceptions to this rule are förste, 'first;' anden, 'second;' tredje, 'third;' fjærde, 'fourth;' sjætte, 'sixth;' tolvte, 'twelfth;' tredivte, 'thirtieth.'

The only numbers affected by gender are den, det, ene, 'the one;' and den anden, det andet, 'the other (second).'

The date of the year is thus indicated: atten hundrede tre og firsindstyve (otti Norw.), '1883.' The day of the month is written as follows: den femte (5te) April, 'April 5th.' The time of day is thus expressed: Klokken er ti, 'it is ten o'clock;' while the parts of the hour are always reckoned, as in German, in relation to the following, and never to the preceding hour; as, det er halv to, 'it is half-past one;' tre Kvarter til ni, 'a quarter to nine.'

Pronouns. (Stedord.)

Danish Pronouns, which retain more traces of the Old Northern modes of inflection than nouns, or adjectives, must agree in gender as well as in number and case with the noun to which they refer, excepting where the grammatical and the natural gender of the word are at variance,