Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

On 8 Sep 02, at 21:07, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

> En also serves as the oblique case of the pronoun man = one. Short
> examples are less common than in English, since Danish has a proper
> reflexive pronoun too:
>
>         Man må sørge for sig selv = You have to look out for yourself
>
>         Man må håbe de ser en = You must hope they see you.
Same in German: _einen_ is the accusative of _man_ (but the possessive
form is usually _sein_, the same as that of _er_ "he"). So "Wenn es
einen trifft..." is "if it (= [bad] fortune) hits one...". And the
dative is _einem_: "Warum sagt hier nie jemand einem etwas?" = "Why
doesn't anyone ever tell 'one' something?" (idiomatically, something
like "How come I never hear any information?").

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>