bøyning

Bøyning, or inflection, is the systematic variation of words to express grammatical information such as number, person, gender, mood, tense, voice, and definiteness. It is a central feature of many languages, including Norwegian, and shapes how sentences are formed and understood.

Nouns: In Norwegian, nouns are inflected for number (singular/plural) and definiteness. The definite form is typically created by suffixing the noun (for example, bok → boka, hus → huset). Nouns also show gender (masculine, feminine, neuter; Bokmål uses common gender for many words). There is limited use of case in modern Norwegian; possession is shown by determiners or possessive pronouns, not by noun endings.

Adjectives: Adjectives agree with the noun in number and gender, and they have definite forms when a noun is definite. They can also take comparative and superlative degrees (stor, større, størst).

Verbs: Norwegian verbs inflect for tense (present, past) and mood, but not for person in finite forms. The present tense often ends in -r (snakker), and past tense forms vary (snakket). Participles form compound tenses and can indicate passive voice (blir tatt). There are two broad verb classes—weak and strong—with various irregulars.

Pronouns and determiners: Personal pronouns inflect for case (subject vs object) and person. Possessives appear with possessive pronouns or -s suffixes.

Bøyning thus encodes essential grammatical relationships and helps convey meaning beyond word order alone.