Den spontane rollefiguren er riktignok enkel, men kroppsspråket virker troverdig.

to be

Breakdown of Den spontane rollefiguren er riktignok enkel, men kroppsspråket virker troverdig.

• enkel: simple
• den: the
• virke: to seem

Questions & Answers about Den spontane rollefiguren er riktignok enkel, men kroppsspråket virker troverdig.

Why does the sentence start with den spontane rollefiguren instead of just spontan rollefigur?

Because the noun phrase is definite: it means the spontaneous character/figure, not a spontaneous character/figure.

In Norwegian, when you have:

• a definite noun
• plus an adjective before it

you normally use double definiteness:

• a definite article before the adjective: den
• and the noun itself in definite form: rollefiguren

So:

• en spontan rollefigur = a spontaneous character
• den spontane rollefiguren = the spontaneous character

This is a very common pattern in Norwegian.

Why is it spontane and not spontan?

Because adjectives usually take the ending -e when they come before a definite noun.

Here:

• spontan = basic form
• den spontane rollefiguren = definite phrase, so the adjective becomes spontane

Compare:

• en spontan rollefigur = a spontaneous character
• den spontane rollefiguren = the spontaneous character

So the -e here is not because of plural, but because the noun phrase is definite.