# Norwegian:  Eller diskusjon og diskusjon



## eva nicolae

Knausgaard describes the members of a work team of Swedes:

_De var snille og vennlige, inviterte meg ofte med på lunsj, og jeg sa like ofte nei, bortsett fra et par ganger, hvor jeg ble sittende taus og lytte til samtalene de førte. En av de gangene var det den tilstundende invasjonen av Irak de diskuterte, og den nærliggende og evigvarende konflikten mellom Israel og Palestina. Eller diskusjon og diskusjon, det var mer som om de satt og småpratet om maten eller været._

Could you please help me understand the logical significance of the underlined part? What does it suggest? How would you translate it?


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## AutumnOwl

Or discussion and discussion; Knausgaard doesn't think of the talking as being a true discussion with arguments for one opinion or an other opinion, it's more as the Swedes were just making small talk.


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## eva nicolae

Thank you, dear Owl!


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## Dan2

eva nicolae said:


> et par ganger, hvor jeg *ble *sittende taus *og lytte* til samtalene de førte.


I would've expected "lyttet" ("listened").  How would you explain what looks like the infinitive form of the verb here?  Thanks very much in advance!


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## myšlenka

Dan2 said:


> I would've expected "lyttet" ("listened").  How would you explain what looks like the infinitive form of the verb here?  Thanks very much in advance!


It is indeed the infinitive. It's an example of the famous _og/å_-confusion. It should be: _hvor jeg ble sittende taus *å* lytte til samtalene de førte._


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## Dan2

Ah - I should've thought of that.  Thanks!


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## Ben Jamin

eva nicolae said:


> Knausgaard describes the members of a work team of Swedes:
> 
> _De var snille og vennlige, inviterte meg ofte med på lunsj, og jeg sa like ofte nei, bortsett fra et par ganger, hvor jeg ble sittende taus og lytte til samtalene de førte. En av de gangene var det den tilstundende invasjonen av Irak de diskuterte, og den nærliggende og evigvarende konflikten mellom Israel og Palestina. Eller diskusjon og diskusjon, det var mer som om de satt og småpratet om maten eller været._
> 
> Could you please help me understand the logical significance of the underlined part? What does it suggest? How would you translate it?


The expression is a classical example of creating an idiom through eliminating the "superfluous" words.
I would decode the expression in the following way " ... eller [det finnes en type] diskusjon [god] og [en annen type] diskusjon [dårlig] [og denne var av den siste typen]" - "... or [there is one kind of a]  discussion [a good one] and [another kind of] discussion [a weak one] [and this one was of the latter kind]. This sentence is an example of the very colloquial kind of prose. Usually this kind of expression is accompanied by the invocation "Fru Blom" (Mrs Blom): "diskusjon og diskusjon, fru Blom".


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## Svenke

myšlenka said:


> It is indeed the infinitive. It's an example of the famous _og/å_-confusion. It should be: _hvor jeg ble sittende taus *å* lytte til samtalene de førte._



No, "og" is correct! 
It is "bli sittende og lytte" just as it is "sitter og lytter" or "satt og lytta".

Svenke


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## myšlenka

Svenke said:


> No, "og" is correct!
> It is "bli sittende og lytte" just as it is "sitter og lytter" or "satt og lytta".
> 
> Svenke


You are right. It is in actually an exception to _preteritumstesten_.


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## Dan2

Svenke said:


> No, "og" is correct!
> It is "bli sittende og lytte" just as it is "sitter og lytter" or "satt og lytta".


Your three phrases clearly make sense:
"bli (infinitive) sittende *og *lytte (infiniive)" 
"sitter (present) *og *lytter" (present) 
"satt (preterite) *og *lytta (preterite)" 

Also:
ble (preterite) sittende taus* å* lytte (infinitive) (remained sitting quietly to listen)  (I mean, it makes sense to me)
But:
ble (*preterite*) sittende taus* og* lytte (*infinitive*) (remain*ed* sitting quietly and to listen) 
How is this to be understood?
Does it crucially depend on "sittende"?  Could you say "Han ble taus og lytte."?


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## bicontinental

Svenke said:


> No, "og" is correct!
> It is "bli sittende og lytte" just as it is "sitter og lytter" or "satt og lytta".
> 
> Svenke



From a grammatical point of view, I’m a little confused about that construction as well … og/and usually indicates a parallel sentence construction, i.e. in this case the verbs would be expected to agree in tense…since they have the same subject? (See Dan2's post#10)




> It is "bli sittende og lytte" just as it is "sitter og lytter" or "satt og lytta".



How about,

Jeg *blir* sittende/liggende og *lytter *("jeg sitter/ligger og lytter") in the present tense.

Jeg *ble *sittende/liggende og *lytta* (satt og lytta)  in the past tense


Incidentally,  I came across this comment to a similar question:



> Skrevet 21. oktober 2011 - 14:12
> 
> "Hun ble sittende og/å se på ham."
> Riktig: Hun ble sittende for å se på ham.
> Riktig: Hun ble sittende og så på ham.
> 
> 
> "Hun ville sitte og/å slappe av."
> Riktig: Hun ville sitte for å slappe av.
> Riktig: Hun ville (både) sitte og slappe av
> 
> (Både) er ikke en nødvendighet, men ville ha vært mest riktig.
> 
> 
> Regelen for "å" og "og":
> "å" kan *kun* brukes foran et verb i infinitiv form.
> Hvis det er to verb i infinitiv form etter hverandre, skal det brukes "og" mellom dem.



Ref: http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?showtopic=1366230


What are your thoughts on this?

Bic.


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## myšlenka

Dan2 said:


> Your three phrases clearly make sense:
> "bli ( infinitive) sittende *og *lytte (infinitive)"
> "sitter (present) *og *lytter" (present)
> "satt (preterite) *og *lytta (preterite)"


I have only been able to find sources that simply say what is correct but not why. After thinking about it, I think I have the answer but I might be wrong (again). Usually coordinated structures carry the same tense. However, for the first ones of the examples above (even though virtually correct), the second infinitive is an infinitive independently of the first one.


Dan2 said:


> Also:
> ble (preterite) sittende taus* å* lytte (infinitive) (remained sitting quietly to listen)  (I mean, it makes sense to me)
> But:
> ble (*preterite*) sittende taus* og* lytte (*infinitive*) (remain*ed* sitting quietly and to listen)
> How is this to be understood?
> Does it crucially depend on "sittende"?  Could you say "Han ble taus og lytte."?


I am not sure it's helpful to try to make sense of this through direct translations to English. Semantically, _sitte_ _og + infinitive_ is to be understood as a unit that expresses progressive aspect which means that the _sitte_-part wouldn't be translated literally. Note that this construction uses _og_.

When you add _bli_ (continuous aspect?) things get messed up because it changes the first part of the progressive construction to a participle, creating an illusion that _bli sittende_ belongs together as a unit. The bracketing however, should be like this: _[bli [sittende og lytte]]._ So, in order to keep "paradigm" uniformity, _og_ should be preferred here. It is still an infinitive.

The second reason why _å_ cannot be used has to got to do with its syntactic properties: it is a subjunction so we should expect the clause it introduces to behave as a subordinate clause of the same kind, e.g. the ability to be topicalized. If _å _was the correct one, the following should be possible:

*1) J_eg ble sittende taus å lytte til samtalene de førte.
*2) Å lytte til samtalene de førte ble jeg sittende taus.
_
Needless to say, the second one of these is very very bad 



As a side point: because _og_ is the correct one, coordination of tense is also possible but this removes the obligatory progressive interpretation and opens up for a possible consecutive interpretation.
_Jeg [ble sittende taus] og [lyttet til samtalene de førte.]_


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## Dan2

myšlenka said:


> I am not sure it's helpful to try to make sense of this through direct translations to English.


I agree.  Where I offered them it was just a convenient way of capturing what seemed logical or illogical.


Dan2 said:


> Does it crucially depend on "sittende"? Could you say "Han ble taus og lytte."?


You didn't comment specifically on the latter sentence, where we no longer have "sitte(nde)".  If I understood your points correctly, it should be ungrammatical.  I hope you will confirm that!

Thanks for all the explanations.


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## raumar

You are right, Dan: "Han ble taus og lytte" is ungrammatical.

In post #11, Bic asked about this comment from another discussion forum:


> "Hun ble sittende og/å se på ham."
> Riktig: Hun ble sittende for å se på ham.
> Riktig: Hun ble sittende og så på ham.
> 
> "Hun ville sitte og/å slappe av."
> Riktig: Hun ville sitte for å slappe av.
> Riktig: Hun ville (både) sitte og slappe av
> (Både) er ikke en nødvendighet, men ville ha vært mest riktig.



This advice should not be trusted. In the first example, "Hun ble sittende og se på ham" is certainly a correct option -- as Myšlenka and Svenke have explained. In the second example, it is wrong to say that "_både_" makes the sentence "more correct"; it is perfectly correct without "_både_".

However, there is one important point here, which supplements Myšlenka's excellent explanation: If we shall use "_å_" in the sentence from the OP, it needs to be "_for å_" -- but then the sentence gets a different meaning.

Let's take a look at Dan2's sentence from post #10: "I remained sitting quietly to listen to their conversations." If we translate this back into Norwegian, we get "_Jeg ble sittende taus for å lytte til samtalene de førte"._ This sentence describes an intention, which wasn't there in Knausgård's original text.

For a translation of "_Jeg ble sittende taus og lytte til samtalene de førte",_ I think the best option would be something like "I was/remained sitting silently, listening to their conversations."


Edit:
There is another problem with the link Bic gave us in post #11:


> Hvis det er to verb i infinitiv form etter hverandre, skal det brukes "og" mellom dem.


This is absolutely incorrect. Take, for example, "Han vil lære å lese".
You will find better advice here:
https://www.ordnett.no/språkverktøy/språkvett.aaellerog


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## bicontinental

^^^ Thanks so much for your comments and explanations above, raumar!
Bic.


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