Re: Having troubles differentiating between object and subject.

From: Haukur Thorgeirsson
Message: 4699
Date: 2004-12-30

> Okay, I'm brand new to the Norse Course (Just started Lesson 2) and I
> have a question so please forgive my ignorance. I was looking
> through some of the vocabulary and conjugations and such and I ran
> into a bit of a problem. It is as follows:
>
> The earl sees the raven.
> Jarl sér hrafn.
>
> The raven sees the earl.
> Hrafn sér jarl.
>
> Similarly:
>
> He sees it. It sees him. The earl sees him. He sees the
> earl. Etc.
>
> How is this overcome? Is it through word order? Does it matter? Do
> I just need to keep reading to find the answer?

Excellent question. These sentences actually _are_ ambiguous.
In normal prose we'd expect the subject to come first.
Most of the time we'd be able to see from the context
who's who.

Kveðja,
Haukur

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