Breakdown of Hunden er bange for sin egen skygge.
være
to be
hunden
the dog
sin
his/her/its own (common)
bange
afraid
for
for (preposition)
egen
own
skyggen
the shadow, the shade
Questions & Answers about Hunden er bange for sin egen skygge.
Why do we use sin here instead of dens for 'its'?
In Danish, when the third-person subject of the sentence (here, hunden) owns the object, you must use the reflexive possessive pronoun (sin, sit, or sine). If you used dens, it would mean the dog is afraid of a different animal's shadow!
Why is the preposition for used after bange?
The English phrase 'afraid of' translates directly to the set phrase bange for in Danish. Prepositions rarely match up perfectly between the two languages, so it is always best to memorize bange for as a single chunk of vocabulary.
Why is the word for 'own' spelled egen here instead of eget?
The word egen acts like an adjective and must agree with the gender of the noun it describes. Because skygge is a common gender noun (an en word), we use egen. If it were a neuter noun (an et word), you would use eget, as in sit eget hus.
Since we are talking about a specific shadow, why doesn't skygge have the definite ending?
In Danish, whenever you use a possessive word (like sin) to show ownership, the noun that follows it must stay in its basic, indefinite form. Even though the shadow is specific, the grammar rule dictates sin egen skygge rather than sin egen skyggen.
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