I den første sætning er "min søster" grundled, men i den anden står grundleddet senere.

Grundled is the Danish school-grammar term for the subject of the clause.

So in this sentence:

• min søster is said to be the grundled in the first sentence
• and in the second sentence, the speaker says that the grundled comes later

If you already know English grammar, you can usually think of grundled = subject.

Because grundleddet is the definite form: the subject.

• grundled = subject
• grundleddet = the subject

Danish often adds the definite article to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like the.

So:

• et grundled = a subject
• grundleddet = the subject

In the sentence, the second clause refers to a specific subject already being discussed, so the definite form is used.

In Danish, when an adjective comes before a noun in the definite sense, you normally use:

• a form like den / det / de
• plus the adjective
• plus the noun in its definite form

Here that gives:

• den første sætning = the first sentence

So:

• i den første sætning = in the first sentence

This is the normal definite pattern.

Because Danish can leave out the noun when it is understood from context.

So:

• i den første sætning = in the first sentence
• i den anden = in the second one

Here, den anden really means the second sentence, but sætning is omitted because it is obvious.

This works much like English the first sentence ... the second one.

This is a very important Danish word-order rule: main clauses are usually V2.

That means the finite verb normally comes in the second position.

In the second clause:

• men = but
• i den anden = in the second one
• står = stands / comes
• grundleddet = the subject
• senere = later

After men, a new main clause begins. In that clause, i den anden is placed first, so the finite verb står must come next.

So the pattern is:

• first element: i den anden
• second position: står
• then the subject: grundleddet

That is why the subject comes after the verb here.

No. Men is a coordinating conjunction, and it does not count as the first element for the V2 rule.

So in:

• men i den anden står grundleddet senere

the clause after men still has its own structure:

1. i den anden
2. står
3. grundleddet
4. senere

If men counted as the first element, the verb position would be different, but Danish does not work that way.

In Danish, stå is often used figuratively to talk about where something appears in a sentence or text.

So grundleddet står senere means something like:

• the subject appears later
• the subject comes later
• literally, the subject stands later

English sometimes does something similar with expressions like the word comes later in the sentence, but Danish uses stå very naturally in this kind of grammatical explanation.

Senere here means later.

It is the comparative form of sent:

• sent = late
• senere = later
• senest = latest

So:

• grundleddet står senere = the subject comes later

Senest would mean latest, which does not fit here.

Første is the adjective/ordinal form meaning first when it modifies a noun.

• den første sætning = the first sentence

Først is usually an adverb, meaning first in the sense of firstly / at first / first in order of actions.

Compare:

• den første sætning = the first sentence
• først kommer grundleddet = first, the subject comes

So here you need første because it describes sætning.

They are marked off because the sentence is talking about the phrase itself as a grammatical example.

In other words, the speaker is not mainly talking about the sister; they are pointing to the words min søster as the phrase that functions as the subject.

In English grammar explanations, we often do the same thing by putting an example in quotation marks or italics. Here, using bold to refer to the expression serves the same purpose.

Er is the present tense of være = to be.

In the first clause:

• I den første sætning = in the first sentence
• er = is
• min søster = my sister
• grundled = subject

So the structure is basically:

• In the first sentence, my sister is the subject.

Because i den første sætning is placed first, the finite verb er comes right after it, following the Danish V2 rule.

Yes. In Danish, the subject does not have to come before the verb in a main clause.

In:

• I den første sætning er min søster grundled

the first position is taken by i den første sætning, so the finite verb er comes second. After that comes the subject min søster.

So even though min søster is after the verb, it is still the grammatical subject.

This is one of the biggest differences English speakers notice, because English usually keeps the subject before the verb much more consistently.

Yes, absolutely. In fact, that is one of the main points of the sentence.

It shows two useful things:

• Danish main clauses follow the V2 rule
• the subject can come after the finite verb if something else is placed first

Examples from the sentence:

• I den første sætning er min søster grundled
• men i den anden står grundleddet senere

Both clauses show that another element can come first, and the verb still stays in second position. That often pushes the subject later in the clause.