A Simplified Grammar of the Danish Language/Part II/The Indefinite Article
PART II.
ON THE CHARACTER, POSITION, AND MORE PRECISE USE OF THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF SPEECH.
The Indefinite Article. (Ubestemte Kendeord.)
The earlier writings of the Old Northern afford no evidence of the use of an Indefinite Article, which was first represented by the pronouns einn, 'one;' einnhver, 'each one;' and nökkurr, 'some one.' From the first of these has been derived the present Dano-Norwegian article, en, et, 'a,' 'an,' which is in point of fact an unaccentuated modification of the existing pronoun en, 'one,' and the numeral en, et, 'one.'
The indefinite article precedes the noun, or the adjective qualifying the latter, as en Mand, en god Mand, excepting in cases where it is used with the adjectives slig, sådan, mangen; or when the adjective to which it refers is preceded by så, hvor, altfor, for, and the sentence has an interjectional sense, under which conditions it stands between the adjective and noun; as, slig en Mand, 'such a man!' mangt et Barn! 'many a child;' så vranten en Pige! "such a cross girl!" hvor dejligt et Træ! 'what a lovely tree!' for kort en Sang! 'too short a song!'
The indefinite article must be repeated after og, even where the nouns, which it enumerates, are of the same gender; as, en Mand og en Kone, 'a man and a woman.'
This article is not used to designate a rank, or calling, or a distinctive qualification; as, Er han Grev eller Baron? "Is he (a) Count or (a) Baron?" Han er Læge, "He is (a) doctor;" Hun er Enke, "She is (a) widow;" Han er Protestant, "He is (a) Protestant."
The indefinite article may be used with a plural to express an indefinite quantity in the sense of "about," "nearly;" as, jeg bliver her en tre, fire Uger, "I shall stay here about three or four weeks."