282 The Loom of Language exist m hterature have no existence in spoken Swedish or in correspon- dence In literary Swedish the plural of the present tense is identical with the infinitive., and the past of strong veibs has plural forms which ena in os some being very irregular, e g for gd (go) we have the two past forms gick-gingo and analogous ones for fd (may) The plural flexion of the \erb is never used in speech 1 he final -de of the past tense-form is often silent The infinitive and the corresponding present tense-form of ENGLISH SWEDISH DANISH ENGLISH SWEDISH DANISH animal djur Dyr floor golv Gulv egg agg Aeg hotel hotel! Hotel life LIV house HUS people FOLK roof tak Tag Pig SVIN table BORD sheep far Faar window fonster Vindue blood BLOD country LAND bone BEN language sprak Sprog ear ora 0ie letter BREV eye oga 0je light ljus Lys hair har Haar name namn Navn heart hjarta j Hjerte weather vader Vejr leg BEN word ORD water vatten Vand year ar Aar many verbs is contracted as in Norwegian, e g be (bedja), request, bh (bhva)> become, dra (draga), carry, ge (gzva)> give, ha (hava), have, ta (tagd) take Similarly stall contracts to skas Eder to Er (you or your), broder (brother) to bror The terminal article and the fiexional passive are both highly charac- teristic of the Scandinavian clan. Another of its peculiarities is a booby- trap for the beginner, because English, like Dutch or German, has no equivalent for it Scandinavian dialects have special forms of the possessive adjective of the third person (analogous to the Latin suus) corresponding to the reflexive pronoun stg They are sm (sing common), sttt or sit (neut. sing ), stna or sine (plur ) in accordance with the gender and number of the thing possessed We must always (and only) use them when they refer back to the subject of the verb, e g Jag har ham bok (I have his book) Han har sin bok (He has his book) Jag besokte hennes bror (I visited her brother) H-m ar*kar Ğrr barn (She loves her child) Jeg har hans Bog Plan har sin Bog. Jeg besogte hendts Broder Hun elsker sit Barn