Breakdown of Hans hovedpine skyldes stress.
hans
his
hovedpinen
the headache
stressen
the stress
skyldes
to be due to
Questions & Answers about Hans hovedpine skyldes stress.
Why does skyldes end in an -s? Is it a passive verb here?
Skyldes is an s-verb. While it technically originates from the passive form of at skylde (to owe), it functions today as an independent verb meaning "to be caused by" or "to be due to". It can be helpful to remember that in both English and Danish, a consequence can be "owed to" its root cause.
Why do we use hans here instead of sin?
Hans hovedpine is the subject of the sentence. The reflexive possessive pronoun sin (and its forms sit and sine) always reflects back to the subject of the clause. Because it must point back to the subject, it can never be used as or inside the subject itself. Therefore, you must use the standard possessive hans.
If I wanted to say "Stress causes his headache", could I just swap the nouns around and use the same verb?
No, because skyldes strictly means "is caused by" or "is due to". If you swapped the words to Stress skyldes hans hovedpine, it would mean the stress is caused by his headache. To say stress is the active cause, you need an active verb like forårsager (causes) or giver (gives), resulting in a sentence like Stress forårsager hans hovedpine.
In English we say "a headache". Why isn't there an article attached to hovedpine here?
In Danish, common physical ailments ending in -pine, such as hovedpine (headache) and tandpine (toothache), are generally treated as uncountable mass nouns. While English uses the countable "a headache", Danes treat it more like a general condition, much like how you use the word "stress". You simply say hans hovedpine (his headache) or jeg har hovedpine (I have a headache).
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