Agreement
sin (, si, sitt, sine) (determiner, possessive) is the reflexive possessive in Norwegian (both Bokmål and Nynorsk). It inflects in gender and number, although gender is oblique in plural.
Norwegian nouns have an inherent gender: feminine, masculine or neuter. They do not inflect in gender -- they have a static one that does not change.
Hunden hadde i sin grådigheit forveksla refleksjonen sin med ein annan hund med bein.
“The dog in its greed had mistaken his reflection for another dog with a bone.”
| Hunden |
| hund | en |
| dog | SGDEF |
| NMASC |
| sin |
| si | n |
| REFL | AGRMASC |
| PNposs |
| grådigheit |
| grådigheit |
| greed |
| NFEM |
| forveksla |
| forveksl | a |
| mix | PRF |
| V |
| refleksjonen |
| refleksjon | en |
| reflection | SGDEF |
| NMASC |
| sin |
| si | n |
| REFL | AGRMASC |
| PNposs |
| ein |
| ein |
| aINDEFMASCSGAGR |
| DET |
In the provided example, there are two occurrences of sin. Although they both look identical, they have different controllers.
The first occurence, «hunden hadde i sin», the controller is the noun hunden. It has the inherent feature NMASC, and it is singular definite. Gender and number is reflected in the possessive, where sin is the masculine singular. This is arguably a case of agreement, where the controller is the noun hunden, the target is sin, and the features are gender and number.
The second occurence, «(...) forveksla refleksjonen sin», the controller is the noun refleksjonen. The agreement features are still gender and number.
An example to illustrate that it is in fact reflection that is the controller, could be «(...) forveksla boka si». Boka (book) is a feminine noun, which is reflected in the inflection of the possessive.
Clause Linkage