Breakdown of I dag vil jeg fremhæve, at det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen.
Questions & Answers about I dag vil jeg fremhæve, at det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen.
Danish normally follows V2 word order in main clauses: the finite verb is always in second position, no matter what comes first.
Neutral order: Jeg vil i dag fremhæve …
(Subject jeg first, verb vil second)With an adverbial in front: I dag vil jeg fremhæve …
(Adverbial I dag first, verb vil still second, subject jeg moves after the verb)
So I dag is moved to the front for emphasis (“Today I want to highlight…”), but the rule “verb in second position” is kept: vil must be the second element in the main clause.
Vil is a modal verb and here it expresses intention or willingness:
- Jeg fremhæver = “I highlight” (a simple statement of a habitual or current action)
- Jeg vil fremhæve = “I want to highlight / I am going to highlight (by choice)”
In this sentence, the speaker is talking about what they intend to do right now in this explanation or lesson. Using vil makes it clear this is a deliberate act they are about to perform, not just a timeless fact.
Fremhæve literally means “to bring forward / to highlight / to single out”.
- It is used when you want to draw special attention to something, to emphasize it as particularly important.
- Common English translations: highlight, emphasize, point out, stress.
Comparison:
- fremhæve – to highlight something, make it stand out from the rest
- understrege – to underline something (often more like “to stress a point,” sometimes a bit stronger or more formal)
In this sentence, vil jeg fremhæve is very natural: the speaker is “highlighting” a specific point in their explanation.
In Danish, at introduces a subordinate clause (a “that”-clause):
- at det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen
= “that it is the subject that changes in the sentence”
Traditional Danish comma rules put a comma before all subordinate clauses, so many people (and older textbooks) write:
- … vil jeg fremhæve, at det er emnet …
Modern official rules say the comma before at is optional, so you may also see:
- … vil jeg fremhæve at det er emnet …
Both are considered correct in practice. The comma here doesn’t change the meaning; it just follows the older “subordinate clause comma” tradition.
Yes. In this sentence, at works like English that introducing a content clause:
- Jeg vil fremhæve, at …
= “I want to highlight that …”
So the entire clause at det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen is the object of the verb fremhæve:
- (Jeg vil fremhæve) hvad?
→ (at det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen)
Det er emnet, der … is a cleft sentence used for strong focus:
- Det er emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen.
Literally: “It is the subject that changes in the sentence.”
This pattern:
- Det er X, der/ som Y
puts contrastive emphasis on X (“It is X (and not something else) that …”).
If you simply say:
- Emnet ændrer sig i sætningen.
you are just stating a fact (“The subject changes in the sentence”) without that strong “not something else” emphasis.
So the original sentence wants to highlight specifically the subject as the changing element, hence the cleft construction det er emnet, der ….
Emne is a neuter noun:
- Indefinite singular: et emne = “a subject/topic”
- Definite singular: emnet = “the subject/topic”
The suffix -et is the definite article attached to neuter nouns:
- hus → huset (“the house”)
- emne → emnet (“the subject”)
In this sentence, we are talking about a specific grammatical subject (the subject in the sentence under discussion), so the definite form emnet is appropriate:
- det er emnet = “it is the subject (the one we’re talking about)”
Both der and som can function as relative pronouns meaning roughly “that / which / who” in subject position.
In the phrase:
- emnet, der ændrer sig
= “the subject that changes”
you could also say:
- emnet, som ændrer sig
In most cases where the relative pronoun is the subject of the relative clause, der and som are interchangeable with no change in meaning. Some stylistic notes:
- der is often a bit more neutral / common in everyday spoken Danish.
- som can feel slightly more formal or careful, but it’s also very common.
Here, der is perfectly natural and standard.
The comma marks a non-restrictive relative clause (also called a “parenthetical” relative clause in English):
- emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen
= “the subject, which changes in the sentence”
With the comma, the clause der ændrer sig i sætningen adds extra information about the subject; it doesn’t restrict which subject you mean. There is only one “emne” in this context.
If the clause were restrictive (identifying which subject among many), Danish could write it without a comma in some styles:
- det emne der ændrer sig = “the subject that changes (as opposed to other subjects that don’t)”
In this particular sentence, we are explaining a known, single “subject in this sentence,” so the non-restrictive, comma version fits the context well.
Ændre sig is a reflexive verb meaning “to change (oneself / itself)”, similar to English “to change” intransitively.
- Noget ændrer sig = “something changes”
- Jeg ændrer noget = “I change something (else)”
So:
- emnet ændrer sig = “the subject changes (itself / its form)”
- jeg ændrer emnet = “I change the subject”
If you drop sig after ændrer without an object, the sentence feels incomplete:
- ✗ Emnet ændrer i sætningen → incorrect or at least very odd
(You’d need an object: emnet ændrer formen = “the subject changes its form”)
Here we don’t specify what the subject changes into or how; we just say that it changes, so the reflexive form ændrer sig is the natural choice.
I sætningen means “in the sentence” and tells you where or in what context the subject is changing.
- emnet, der ændrer sig = “the subject that changes”
- emnet, der ændrer sig i sætningen = “the subject that changes in the sentence”
Grammatically, you could drop i sætningen, but then the sentence becomes more abstract and less clear about where the change happens. In the context of teaching grammar, i sætningen clarifies that we’re talking about changes within sentence structure, not some other type of change.
Both are grammatically correct:
I dag vil jeg fremhæve, at …
= “Today I want to highlight that …”
(stronger focus on “today”; it’s placed first for emphasis)Jeg vil i dag fremhæve, at …
= “I want to highlight today that …”
(more neutral; the main focus is on “I want to highlight”, and i dag is just an extra time adverbial in the middle)
The basic meaning is the same, but Danish often moves elements like I dag to the front when they are topical or emphasized. The verb still stays in second position in both versions (vil is the second element).