# Norwegian: the use of infinitive



## Kiedis

Here's an interesting usage of infinitive:

"Han ble stående på fortauet og vente."

I think I understand the meaning of this sentence quite well, but I have a few general questions related to this issue:

1. Can this construction be applied *to all verbs*? E.g. _Hun ble sittende og høre._

2. Can this construction be used with other grammatical tenses? E.g. Jeg er stående og lese; De vil bli gående og rope. Etc.

3. Is this type of construction common in spoken Norwegian?


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## Magb

1. I think it can be used with all verbs that can be used intransitively (Edit: scratch that, you can use it with transitive verbs as well, e.g. "Han ble sittende og/å se på TV"). I can't identify any semantic constraints. The present participles that can be used are very limited though. They're basically restricted to some motion verbs and stative verbs, e.g. _sittende_, _stående_, _liggende_, _løpende_, etc.

2. The present tense one feels wrong to me, but your _vil bli_ example sounds fine. _Jeg er stående_ is a rare construction in Norwegian anyway. Somewhat ironically, the "present participle" isn't used much in the present tense in Norwegian.

3. Yeah, I'd say so. But you'll also hear people say "Han ble stående og venta", "Jeg er sittende og venter" (but again, this is quite rare), "Jeg blir sittende og venter", where the second verb gets the same tense as the auxiliary _bli_/_være_.


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## Magb

A small addendum: I'm not 100% certain that what we're dealing with is actually _X-ende og INF_; it could also be the infinitive marker _å_. _Og_ and _å_ are homophonous in Norwegian, and are often conflated. The syntax seems a bit less mysterious if we assume that the sentences are actually akin to _Han ble sittende å vente_.

Meanwhile, the similar looking construction _sittende og venta_ must clearly have the conjunction _og_, as the infinitive marker makes no sense there.


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## Magb

I feel a bit crazy for debating with myself here, but in regards to my above post, I thought I'd point out that googling for "stående og vente" gives a lot of Danish hits, and I don't think Danes are as prone to conflating the infinitive marker and _og_ as are Norwegians. "Stående at vente" only gives a few results. The results for Swedish are similar: there's lots of hits for "stående och vänta", and only a handful for "stående att vänta". So unless the construction is syntactically different in Norwegian than in Swedish and Danish, it looks like it _is_ the conjunction after all. Either way it's a bit of a grammatical peculiarity.


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## Leopold

Er det det samme som "jeg sitter og venter" eller "jeg sto og venta"? Hva er forskjellen når vi bruker "bli"? 

Jeg forstår at oversettelsen kunne være som "I am/was waiting", ikke sant?

Takk!


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## ermannoitaly

Hei
Jeg tror at det er mulig å si :
Hun sitter og prater med venner.
eller
Hun sitter å prate med venner. 
Han kom løpende og  røpende om hjelp. 

Jeg er usikker på om de følgende setningene er riktige eller ei :
 Han blir stående å røyke.
Han blir stående å vente.
Er det mulig at ordet "stående" er et adjektiv her?
Jeg håper at noen kan vennligst forklare det. 
Mvh
E


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## hanne

Didn't read this thread before, but wanted to add a comment to this:



			
				Magb said:
			
		

> A small addendum: I'm not 100% certain that what we're dealing with is actually X-ende og INF; it could also be the infinitive marker å. Og and å are homophonous in Norwegian, and are often conflated. The syntax seems a bit less mysterious if we assume that the sentences are actually akin to Han ble sittende å vente.
> 
> Meanwhile, the similar looking construction sittende og venta must clearly have the conjunction og, as the infinitive marker makes no sense there.





Magb said:


> I feel a bit crazy for debating with myself here, but in regards to my above post, I thought I'd point out that googling for "stående og vente" gives a lot of Danish hits, and I don't think Danes are as prone to conflating the infinitive marker and _og_ as are Norwegians. "Stående at vente" only gives a few results. The results for Swedish are similar: there's lots of hits for "stående och vänta", and only a handful for "stående att vänta". So unless the construction is syntactically different in Norwegian than in Swedish and Danish, it looks like it _is_ the conjunction after all. Either way it's a bit of a grammatical peculiarity.



It looks like you have at least some grammatical peculiarity too, because apparently you can mix tenses more freely than we can. In Danish the tense of the two parts would have to match ("han blev stående og vente*de[/de]", "han bliver stående og venter", or "han vil blive stående og vente", but NOT "han blev stående og vente").

I guess that you can have "og" exactly because the tenses match, otherwise you might have "han blev stående for at vente" - if you for some reason lost the "for" in Norwegian, then it might well be an "at/å" that you've got with the infinitive. But that's just me speculating...*


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## Magb

hanne said:


> It looks like you have at least some grammatical peculiarity too, because apparently you can mix tenses more freely than we can. In Danish the tense of the two parts would have to match ("han blev stående og vente*de[/de]", "han bliver stående og venter", or "han vil blive stående og vente", but NOT "han blev stående og vente").*


*

You're right. If I had looked more carefully at the Danish google hits I would've seen that they're all preceded by a modal like vil, skal, må, etc., so of course nothing else than an infinitive would make sense.



hanne said:



			I guess that you can have "og" exactly because the tenses match, otherwise you might have "han blev stående for at vente" - if you for some reason lost the "for" in Norwegian, then it might well be an "at/å" that you've got with the infinitive. But that's just me speculating...
		
Click to expand...


That sounds plausible to me. Whether it developed specifically from "for å" or something else is hard to say, but in any case it looks like this is a Norwegian innovation. Can any of our resident Swedes clear up how this works in Swedish?



ermannoitaly said:



			Hei
Jeg tror at det er mulig å si :
Hun sitter og prater med venner.
eller
Hun sitter å prate med venner. 
Han kom løpende og  røpende om hjelp.
		
Click to expand...


Not quite. The "å prate" version only works with the present participle.

"Han kom løpende og ropende" works, I suppose, but that constuction isn't really related to what we're discussing here.



ermannoitaly said:



			Jeg er usikker på om de følgende setningene er riktige eller ei :
 Han blir stående å røyke.
Han blir stående å vente.
Er det mulig at ordet "stående" er et adjektiv her?
Jeg håper at noen kan vennligst forklare det. 
Mvh
E
		
Click to expand...


It's a present participle, which is a verb form that indeed has many of the properties of an adjective. I wouldn't think of it as being an adjective in this case, since that might suggest that you could put other adjectives in its place, which you can't. You can't say stuff like *Han blir sliten å vente; only the present participles can occupy that slot. However, in a phrase like en stående mann, stående definitely is an adjective.*


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## Magb

Leopold said:


> Er det det samme som "jeg sitter og venter" eller "jeg sto og venta"? Hva er forskjellen når vi bruker "bli"?
> 
> Jeg forstår at oversettelsen kunne være som "I am/was waiting", ikke sant?
> 
> Takk!



I'm sorry, I missed your post at first.

I'd translate _Han ble stående på fortauet og vente_ as something like "He *remained* waiting on the sidewalk" or "He stayed behind waiting on the sidewalk". _Bli_ can mean "remain" or "stay" on its own, e.g. _Han ble hjemme_ ("He stayed home").

In _De vil bli gående og rope_ it's much harder to pin down precisely what the present participle construction is conveying. It's definitely different from saying _De kommer til å gå og rope_, but I'm having a hard time describing the difference. Maybe someone else can help.


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## missTK

My thoughts on "gå og...." vs. "bli gående og..." is that the first one is a neutral statement of activity. The second is generally negative, and it often means that the activity lacks progress or purpose. It's typically used for activities like waiting, worrying, cleaning, pacing, wandering, searching, etc.


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## Leopold

Tusen takk, jeg tror jeg forstår meningen deres.


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## Prebe

I found this thread by accident when researching this precise grammatical oddity, and I wanted to add Finn-Erik Vinje's answer to the question, from "Riktig Norsk" (the bible). I know most of this has already been said, but since I consider Vinje an authority on the subject, I thought it would be helpful to have his explanation of the construction. My translation:



> _vi ble sittende og prate_
> 
> The participle here primarily states the fact that the action has a certain duration (durative action). It's therefore not about two logically coordinated clauses, and we would therefore have expected the infinitive marker.
> 
> However, since the correct grammar has to be _de satt og pratet_ (not: _de satt å prate_), where the initial verb has the same function as in the example with the present participle, we instead write _sittende og prate_, _stående og glo_, _liggende og sove_, etc.



So I interpret that as a grammatical exception because of the illogical nature of the alternative construction. 

_Vi ble sittende og ventet_ has a different meaning entirely, so that's not an option. While _vi ble sittende og prate_ could be translated to something like _we sat there talking for a while_, the alternative _vi ble sittende og ventet_ would be translated as _we remained seated and we also waited_.


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## Kiedis

Thank you all!


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