Re: 'Show you have a loving heart' ?

Peter Moylan wrote:
sigvaldi wrote:

Or "I am a Danish" which is correct in quite a different context....

It's an excellent example for demonstrating what the issue is. We all
know that "Danish" is an adjective and "Dane" is a noun, so it's clear
which word to use in which context. "I am a Danish" would be incorrect
if it weren't for the fact that we've come to adopt "a Danish" as an
abbreviation for "a Danish pastry".

Some nationality words have the same form as adjectives and nouns. So
"I am a German" and "I am German" are both correct, because "German"
is (in English) both a noun and an adjective. This doesn't work with
a word like "French", which is always an adjective and never a noun.

The French are not so sure about that.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Show you have a loving heart ?
    ... "I am a Danish" would be incorrect ... Some nationality words have the same form as adjectives and nouns. ... English) both a noun and an adjective. ... "Chinese" is right on the borderline. ...
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  • Re: Estimation of latin words in German
    ... shorthand for "did it come into English as a calque on the plus/le plus construction in French")? ... "Teach Yourself Danish" says the following: "A number of adjectives are not inflected in comparison, but express the comparative and the superlative with the help of _mere_ and _mest_. ... The English "rule" isn't that much different from this, though it goes a bit further. ...
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    ... -rt (also past participles); present participles; and ... In Swedish, "mera" and "mest" are used with adjectives that end in -ad and -isk, and all present and past participles. ... Norwegian is of course strongly influenced by Danish. ... adjective comparison in modern English: ...
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  • Re: Learning a language
    ... Not all adjectives ... ANd in Danish one must learn which ones NEED note the difference, ... Yeah, so much easier than E-o, right Sau Dan? ... Orienta Iowa Esperanto-Ligo ...
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