Sperrefallen er etter alt å dømme gammel.

to be

Breakdown of Sperrefallen er etter alt å dømme gammel.

• gammel: old
• sperrefallen: the deadlocking latch
• etter alt å dømme: apparently; by all indications

Questions & Answers about Sperrefallen er etter alt å dømme gammel.

Why does sperrefallen end in -en?

Because -en is the usual definite singular ending for many common-gender Norwegian nouns.

So:

• en sperrefall = a sperrefall
• sperrefallen = the sperrefall

In this sentence, the noun is definite, so Norwegian uses the suffixed article instead of a separate word like English the.

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Why is it gammel and not gamle, even though sperrefallen is definite?

Because gammel is a predicative adjective here: it comes after the verb er and describes the subject.

In Norwegian, predicative adjectives usually agree with gender and number, but not definiteness.

So you get:

• Bilen er gammel = The car is old
• Huset er gammelt = The house is old
• Bilene er gamle = The cars are old

Even though sperrefallen is definite, it is still singular and presumably common gender, so gammel is correct.

If the adjective were placed before the noun, then definiteness would matter:

• den gamle sperrefallen = the old sperrefall

But that is a different structure.

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What does etter alt å dømme mean?