The reduction of morphological complexity has been accompanied by the emergence of a more rigid order of sentence elements. Main clauses have the finite verb in second position. This can be preceded by almost any other sentence constituent; most often it is preceded by the subject. In yes-no questions the preverbal position is empty. In other questions it is occupied by the question word. When the subject does not precede the verb, it follows it. A nonfinite verb follows the subject but precedes the object and adverbials (except sentence adverbials and certain time adverbials, which may precede the nonfinite verb). In Icelandic, subordinate clauses have the same basic structure as main clauses; in the other languages the verb always follows the subject and any sentence adverbial. Complex verb phrases are formed with modal auxiliaries (e.g., kan ‘can’) and infinitives or with the perfect auxiliaries ha(ve) ‘have’ and få ‘get’ (Icelandic geta) and the perfect participle. Instead of such durative aspect markers as the English progressive (e.g., “is talking”), verbs indicating position are combined with the main verb (e.g., Dano-Norwegian han sitter [står, går, ligger] og prater ‘he is sitting [standing, walking, lying] and talking.’). Icelandic has special constructions for present and perfect aspects (er að ganga ‘is going’ or er buinn að ganga, literally, ‘is through going’).

Major differences in the Norwegian languages, Swedish, and Danish are few: (1) New Norwegian and Swedish use the nominative after a copula (Det er eg/jag ‘It is I’), Dano-Norwegian and Danish, the accusative (Det er meg/mig ‘It is me’). (2) A complex passive is formed either with Old Scandinavian verða (Swedish varda, New Norwegian verta) or Low German bliven (Danish blive, Dano-Norwegian bli) and the perfect participle. (3) A verbal particle precedes the object in Swedish (Jag brände upp den/tidningen ‘I burned it up/[I burned up] the newspaper’), follows it in Danish (Jeg brendte den/avisen opp), while both orders are used in Norwegian, depending on the relative weight of the particle and the object (Eg brende henne opp/Eg brende opp avisa). (4) The reflexive pronoun sin is used with singular or plural subjects, except in Danish, in which it is used only with singular subjects. (5) A definite article is indicated by a form before the adjective and a suffix after the noun (“double definite”), except in Icelandic and Danish (e.g., in Norwegian and Swedish det store [stora] huset ‘the big house,’ both det and -et in huset mean ‘the,’ in Danish the suffix -et is not used: det store hus). (6) A possessive may follow its noun in Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian but not in Danish or Swedish (Icelandic hesturinn minn ‘my horse,’ literally, ‘horse mine,’ Swedish min häst ‘my horse’). (7) The numeral ‘one’ is used (in unstressed form) as an indefinite article (i.e., as a and an are used in English), except in Icelandic, which has no indefinite article. (8) Swedish omits the auxiliary hava ‘have’ in subordinate clauses (Huset jag sett… ‘The house I [have] seen…’).

Vocabulary

The everyday stock of Scandinavian words, including most of the high-frequency words, is Indo-European and Germanic in its core. Of the 200,000 or more entries in the large dictionaries of each language, the vast majority are either compounds and derivatives of the simpler words or else borrowings from other languages—mostly of a scientific and cultural nature. At the end of the 20th century, the chief source of loanwords in the North Germanic languages was English.

Icelandic preserved the creative powers of the older language by making it a policy not to accept new words in unassimilated form. Whenever possible, new compounds and derivatives have been created to avoid the borrowing of foreign terms. To some extent Faroese and New Norwegian have followed the same policy but without the degree of success that Icelandic has had. Danish, Swedish, and Dano-Norwegian have adopted numerous German words, along with their prefixes and suffixes—e.g., Danish and Norwegian betale and Swedish betala ‘pay’ from Low German betalen.

The borrowings of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian reflect the varied contacts discussed above. Their vocabulary consists of a native core, a German middle layer (with words like Danish skrædder ‘tailor’; compare Icelandic and Faroese klæðskeri, literally ‘cloth-cutter’), and an international outer layer (with words such as psykologi ‘psychology’; compare Icelandic and Faroese sálfrædi, literally ‘soul science’). While there are some differences among the languages in the exact composition of these layers, there is also considerable agreement. Differences occur especially in words of local origin (slang, humour, endearments, abuse) and in borrowings of different origin—e.g., Norwegian etasje/Swedish våning/Danish sal ‘story’ (in a hotel), from French étage, Middle Low German woninge, and Old Scandinavian salr (but with its meaning from North German Saal).