De pågrep ham i går.

they

Breakdown of De pågrep ham i går.

• i går: yesterday
• ham: him
• pågripe: to arrest

Questions & Answers about De pågrep ham i går.

Why is De capitalized? Does it mean they or formal you?

In this sentence, it means they.

The capital D is there because De is the first word of the sentence. If the same word came later, it would normally be written de.

There is also an older, formal De meaning polite you, but that is uncommon in modern Norwegian. At the beginning of a sentence, De can therefore look ambiguous by itself, but if the meaning shown is They arrested him yesterday, then you should understand it as they.

What tense is pågrep, and what is the infinitive?

Pågrep is the simple past (preterite).

The infinitive is å pågripe, meaning to arrest / to apprehend.

A useful set of forms is:

• å pågripe = to arrest
• pågriper = arrests / is arresting
• pågrep = arrested
• har pågrepet = has/have arrested

So De pågrep ham i går is simply They arrested him yesterday.

Why is it ham and not han?