or calling is indicated, unless the latter be qualified by an adjective; as, han är general, 'he is a general;' min vän är en tapper officer, 'my friend is a brave officer;' prestens son är läkare, 'the clergyman's son is a doctor;' gossen skall bli smed, 'the boy is to be a smith.'
The Definite Articles.
In the Old Northern there was no distinct definite article till a comparatively late period, when its place was supplied by the use of the demonstrative pronoun –
hinn, m., hin, f., hint (hitt), n., singular, this, that; hinir, ... hinar, ... hin, ... plural, these, those;
which either followed the noun in an independent form, as Sæmundr hinn frodi, 'the wise Sæmund,' or was affixed to it with the h and final n dropped for euphony, as hestrin, 'the horse.' In conformity with this process of adaptation, the modern Scandinavian tongues have used the demonstrative pronoun den, det, de, 'this,' 'that,' etc., as a definite independent article, pronounced without the vowel-stress that marks the former. In the earlier forms of Swedish this unaccented pronoun generally followed the noun which it defined, and came in process of time to be incorporated with it in the form of the suffixes -en or -n, m., f.; -et or -t, n., sing.; -ne, -na, -en or -a, pl., which now constitute one of the most distinctive characteristics of the language.
Swedish thus possesses two distinct forms of the definite article, the one independent, as den blomma, 'the flower,'
