--- In norse_course@egroups.com, Shoshana and Rex Jemison
<shoshana@...> wrote:

> At 03:07 PM 12/02/2000 -0000, you wrote:
>
> The word order is fairly free; you can have
> subject-verb-object, as in English, or something
> quite different.
>
> Heitir konungrinn Sveinn.
> Sveinn heitir konungrinn.
> Konungrinn heitir Sveinn.
> <<<<
> Okay. Now I'm lost again. I understand that word order is pretty

free, and

> meaning is ending-based rather than syntax-based as it mostly is in
> English. However, Why Sveinn instead of Svenr? If Sven is "a king"

as

> opposed to "THE king" wouldn't it be: Svenr es konungr?
>
> Regarding our poor Sven here... Doesn't SveINN imply The Sven? Or

do we use

> the -inn suffix when we are referring to a specific Sven as opposed

to any

> old Sven? If the latter, then would I be referred to as Emmainn?

No no no :) "Sven" is just some English version of the name; the ON
name is "Svein". Prepare for slight complexities: the nominative of
Svein is Sveinn, not Sveinr, because the -r assimilates to the final
n; I don't remember if that appears in the first lesson, but the rule
is that if the stem has a long vowel (e.g. with an accent) or a
dipththong, like Svein does, this assimilation occurs, after n and l.
Another example is the word "heil"; we would add -r for the
nominative, but because the vowel is a diphthong 'ei', it
assimilates: heill.

Regarding your interpretation of SveINN as an article, that would
make the stem "sve", not "sven". Also, you would not be referred to
as Emmainn for three reasons:

1. -inn is the masculine article, -in is the feminine one; you're
feminine
2. the vowels cannot co-exist like that; the i gets deleted, so we
only add -n, yielding Emman
3. articles are never added to names at all, anyway

Hope that clarifies.

Óskar