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Case: It is customary in English and Danish to distinguish three cases in the
system of personal pronouns: nominative, accusative, and genitive. The
nominative case is typically used for the subject, the genitive for possession or
ownership, and the accusative for everything else.
• nominative (nom)
o
o
ENGLISH: She resigned, They are rich, We were not invited, You
should leave now
DANISH: Hun sagde op, De er rige, Vi blev ikke inviteret, Du
burde gå nu
• genitive (gen)
o
o
ENGLISH: This bike is mine, not yours; These plates are heavier
than ours
DANISH: Denne cykel er min, ikke din; Disse tallerkener er
tungere end vores
• accusative (acc)
o
o
ENGLISH: Nobody has seen him, Bob gave him the book, Bob
gave the book to him
DANISH: Ingen har set ham, Bob gav ham bogen, Bob gav bogen
til ham
Potential pitfalls: Note that the so-called “dative” is not included in the list of
cases for English and Danish. This is because neither language has a separate
form to mark the “recipient” – which typically functions as the indirect object.
As the above examples demonstrate, both the indirect object and the direct
object are realized as the same form in English (e.g. him) and Danish (e.g.
ham).
Gender: In English, gender is noticeable primarily in the third person singular
personal pronouns:
• masculine (masc): ENGLISH: he, him, his;
DANISH: han, ham, hans
• feminine (fem): ENGLISH she, her, hers; DANISH: hun, hende,
hendes
page 48
John M. Dienhart