r/norsk • u/dwchandler • Sep 10 '17

Søndagsspørsmål #192 - Sunday Question Thread

This is a weekly post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

Previous søndagsspørsmål

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Eberon Sep 14 '17

I stumbled across this headline:

Bergen må være stolte av sykkel-VM

I'm curious about the plural form stolte since Bergen is singular. Does Norwegian the same as English and treats singular words as plural when they denote a group of people? (E.g. "The police are coming.")

Or is there a complete other reason it's stolte?

4

u/tobiasvl Native Speaker Sep 15 '17

Does Norwegian the same as English and treats singular words as plural when they denote a group of people? (E.g. "The police are coming.")

Yes. If the police were proud of the world championship, it would be "Politiet er stolte av sykkel-VM" as well. In this case, "Bergen" means "the people of Bergen". It's been too long since I studied linguistics to tell you if this is metonymy or not, but I guess it's related.

1

u/Eberon Sep 15 '17

Thanks.