Min rygsæk står ved min stol, og min pung ligger i den.

Danish very often uses position verbs for location, where English would simply use is.

The most common ones are:

• stå = stand
• ligge = lie
• sidde = sit

So instead of saying the backpack is by the chair, Danish says it stands there. And instead of saying the wallet is in it, Danish says it lies in it.

This is one of the big differences between English and Danish: Danish often describes how something is positioned, not just that it is there.

In Danish, stå is not only used for people. It is also used for objects that are seen as:

• upright
• resting on a base
• placed in a standing position

So a backpack on the floor can easily stå, especially if the speaker imagines it upright.

If the backpack were on its side, a Dane might instead say rygsækken ligger.

So this is about the speaker’s mental picture of the object’s position, not about whether the object has legs.

Ligge is used for things that are understood as:

• lying down
• being inside something
• being placed without an upright standing position

A wallet is often thought of as something that lies in a bag, pocket, drawer, and so on.

So min pung ligger i den sounds very natural in Danish.

English usually does not make this distinction and just says my wallet is in it.

Here ved means something like:

• by
• next to
• near
• sometimes at, depending on context

So ved min stol means by my chair or next to my chair.

It does not necessarily mean direct physical contact. It just places the backpack close to the chair.

These forms depend on the gender and number of the noun.

• min = common gender singular
• mit = neuter singular
• mine = plural

In your sentence:

• min rygsæk
• min stol
• min pung

All three nouns are common gender, so they take min.

Examples:

• min stol = my chair
• mit bord = my table
• mine bøger = my books

Because the possessive already takes that place.

Just as in English you say my chair, not a my chair, Danish says:

• min stol
• not en min stol

So min, mit, and mine replace the indefinite article.

Because den is the pronoun used for a common gender singular noun.

• den = common gender singular
• det = neuter singular

Since the thing referred to is understood as a common-gender noun, Danish uses den.

For example:

• en stol → den
• en rygsæk → den
• et bord → det

So i den means in it, where it refers to a common-gender noun.

Grammatically, den could refer to either one, because both rygsæk and stol are singular common-gender nouns.

So yes, the sentence is technically ambiguous.

In real life, context usually solves this. Most people will naturally understand den as referring to rygsæk, because a wallet being in the backpack makes much more sense than being in the chair.

If you wanted to make it completely clear, you could say:

• Min rygsæk står ved min stol, og min pung ligger i rygsækken.

That removes the ambiguity.

Sometimes yes, but it changes the feel of the sentence.

• Min pung er i den is possible and understandable.
• Min pung ligger i den sounds more natural and more specifically Danish, because it describes physical placement.

With the backpack, er is usually less natural in this exact structure:

• Min rygsæk står ved min stol = very natural
• Min rygsæk er ved min stol = less idiomatic in many contexts

A Dane often prefers the position verb when talking about where physical objects are.

So er is not always wrong, but står and ligger are often better.

Because Danish writes compound nouns as one word much more consistently than English does.

Rygsæk is made from:

• ryg = back
• sæk = sack/bag

Together they form rygsæk = backpack.

This is very normal in Danish. Other compounds are also usually written as one word, not two.

So if English has something like backpack, toothbrush, or bedroom, Danish will very often also use a single written word.

The sentence has normal main-clause word order:

• Min rygsæk står ved min stol
• og min pung ligger i den

In both clauses, the pattern is basically:

subject + finite verb + rest

That is the standard simple order.

A useful thing to know, though, is that Danish main clauses usually follow the verb-second rule. That means the finite verb tends to come in the second position.

For example, if you move the location to the front, you get:

• Ved min stol står min rygsæk.

Here ved min stol takes the first position, so the verb står comes next, before the subject min rygsæk. That is very typical Danish word order.