The logical subject in infinitive clauses
In Danish, the reflexive pronouns sin, sit, and sine (his/her/its own) normally refer back to the grammatical subject of the sentence. But things get interesting when a sentence contains an infinitive clause with its own "logical subject".
When verbs like beordre (to order) or instruere (to instruct) are used to tell someone to do something, the person receiving the instruction becomes the logical subject of that new action.
| The director orders the assistant to fetch his own car. | Direktøren beordrer assistenten til at hente sin bil. |
In the sentence above, the grammatical subject is direktøren (the director), but the logical subject of the infinitive clause at hente (to fetch) is assistenten (the assistant). Therefore, sin refers to the assistant's car, not the director's. If the director wanted his own car fetched, we would use hans instead.
Matching gender and number
As always, you must choose between sin (common gender), sit (neuter gender), and sine (plural) based on the noun being possessed, while the pronoun itself still points back to the logical subject of the clause.
This rule applies even when the main grammatical subject is not in the third person.
| You must instruct the temp in using his own access card. | Du skal instruere vikaren i at bruge sit adgangskort. |
Here, the grammatical subject is du (you), which does not use sin/sit/sine. However, because vikaren (the temp) is the logical subject of using the card, and adgangskort is a neuter noun, we use sit.
| She encourages the employee to delegate his own tasks because of the stress. | Hun opfordrer medarbejderen til at delegere sine opgaver på grund af stressen. |
When the logical subject possesses multiple things—like opgaver (tasks)—you use the plural reflexive pronoun sine.
Delegating and giving orders
Workplaces are full of situations where one person directs another. This grammar pattern is heavily used with verbs for delegating tasks, such as at bede om (to ask) and at tvinge til (to force).
| He asks the intern to put her own notebook on the desk. | Han beder praktikanten om at lægge sin notesbog på skrivebordet. |
| The new procedure forces the intern to delegate his own work. | Den nye procedure tvinger praktikanten til at delegere sit arbejde. |
In every case, identify who is actually performing the action in the infinitive clause. That person is your logical subject, and sin, sit, or sine will always refer back to them.
