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Swedish GrammarSwedish grammar is the study of the grammar of the Swedish language. Swedish uses inflection with nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Word order is fairly fixed — generally subject-verb-object is the order of a declarative sentence, while a question sentence is verb-subject-object. An unusual feature is that a sentence beginning with an adverbial phrase (e.g. "In the morning", "Frequently"), also inverts subject and verb, the same as a question would. Nouns Nouns come in two grammatical genders: common and neuter. Old Swedish formerly had masculine and feminine genders in place of common; some old phrases and ceremonial uses preserve these archaic forms. Noun gender is largely arbitrary and must be memorised. There is a limited grammatical case system: pronouns have distinct nominative, accusative, and genitive forms. Regular nouns are alike in nominative and accusative; the genitive is formed regularly by adding -s (after the definite article, if the noun is definite). (This case system is nearly identical to that used in English) Plural forms Nouns form the plural in a variety of ways: It is customary to classify regular Swedish nouns into five declensions based on their plural indefinite endings: -or, -ar, -er, -n, and unchanging nouns. - All nouns of common gender ending in a add -r and change the a to o. For example, flicka (girl), flickor (girls).
- Most nouns of common gender not ending in a add either -ar, -er, or (rarely) -r. While -ar is slightly more common, there is no reliable rule to determine which suffix to use. Examples: vxt (plant), vxter (plants); lk (onion), lkar (onions).
- All neuter nouns ending in a vowel add -n. For example: pple (apple), pplen (apples).
- All neuter nouns ending in a consonant are unchanged in the plural. For example: barn (child) or barn (children).
There are also some irregular nouns — their number is not great, but they are some of the most commonly used words. Mildly irregular nouns are common nouns that are unchanged in the plural, nouns that double a consonant and shorten a vowel in the plural, etc. Certain nouns borrowed from Latin use Latin inflections. A small class of irregular nouns consist of those that mutate a back vowel of the singular form to a front vowel in the plural. Some of these also change the vowel and consonant lengths also, or add some sort of suffix, or both. The cognates of these mutating nouns in other Germanic languages are often similary irregular. Example: gs (goose), gss (geese); man (man), mn (men). Articles and definite forms The definite article in Swedish is a suffix, while the indefinite article is a separate word preceding the noun. This structure of the articles is shared by the Scandinavian languages. Articles differ in form depending on the gender and number of the noun. The indefinite article is "en" for common nouns, and "ett" for neuter nouns, e.g. en flaska (a bottle), ett brev (a letter). The definite article is generally the suffixes "-(a)n" or "-(e)n" for common nouns, and "-(e)t" for neuter nouns. There are, however, other possibilities. The 5 declensions may be named -or, -ar, -er, -en, and null after their respective plural indefinite endings. Each noun has 4 forms: singular/plural, and definite/indefinite. So these 20 examples cover all regular Swedish noun forms: | singular indef. | singular def. | plural indef. | plural def. | | 1st (-or) | en flaska | flaskan | flaskor | flaskorna | | 2nd (-ar) | en buske | busken | buskar | buskarna | | 3rd (-er) | en minut | minuten | minuter | minuterna | | 4th (-en) | ett vittne | vittnet | vittnen | vittnena | | 5th ( - ) | ett brev | brevet | brev | breven | Pronouns The Swedish pronoun system is almost identical to that of English. Pronouns inflect for person, number, and, in the third person singular, gender. Differences with English include the inclusion in Swedish of a reflexive pronoun "sig" for third-person reflexive, and the maintenance of distinct 2nd person singular, plural, and objective forms which have all merged to "you" in English, while the third person plurals are becoming merged in Swedish instead. The Swedish pronouns are: | subjective | objective | possessive | | I | jag | mig | min/mitt/mina | | you (singular) | du | dig | din/ditt/dina | | he | han | honom | hans | | she | hon | henne | hennes | | it (common) | den | den | dess | | it (neuter) | det | det | dess | | we | vi | oss | vr/vrt/vra | | you (plural) | ni | er | er/ert/era | | they | de* | dem* | deras | | (reflexive) | - | sig | sin/sitt/sina | *"de" (they) and "dem" (them) are both pronounced "dom" in speech, and occasionally spelled that way in casual writing. Note also that mig, dig, sig are pronounced as if written "mej", "dej", "sej", and sometimes spelled that way for slang effect. Adjectives The Swedish adjectives are declined according to the gender, number, and definiteness of the noun. Nouns of the common gender in singular indefinite form get the undeclined form of the adjective. Nouns of the neuter gender in singular indefinite form generally get the suffix -t. - En stor elefant - A large elephant (stor - large)
- Ett stort lejon - A large lion
Nouns in plural or definite form, or both, get the suffix -a. - En lng man - A tall man (lng - tall)
- Den lnga mannen - The tall man
- Lnga mn - Tall men
- De lnga mnnen - The tall men
Numerals Cardinal numbers The numbers from zero to twelve in Swedish are: - noll, ett, tv, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, tta, nio, tio, elva, tolv
The number 1 is the same as the indefinite article, as it inflects for a noun's gender. The Swedish numerals for 13 to 19 are below. - tretton, fjorton, femton, sexton, sjutton, arton, nitton
The numerals for multiples of ten afterwards from 20 to 90 are as follows: - tjugo, trettio, fyrtio, femtio, sextio, sjuttio, ttio, nittio
be completed Ordinal numbers Function Verbs Verbs do not inflect for person or number. Other tenses are formed by combinations of auxiliary verbs with infinitives or a special form of the participle called the supine. By one common system there are four classes of verbs, class I, II, III and IV. In Class I verbs, the stem ends in -a, the present tense ends in -r, the past tense in -de, the supine in -t, and the past participle in -d. The infinitive is the same as the stem. About 80% of all verbs in Swedish belong in Class I, which is the only productive verb class; i.e., all new verbs coming into Swedish will be of this class. In the paradigm below the forms are the stem, infinitive, present tense, past tense, supine, and past participle. The imperative is the same as the stem. - kalla-, kalla, kallar, kallade, kallat, kallad (to call)
Class II has stems ending in a consonant, and adds -er in the present. The infinitive ends in -a. - lev-, leva, lever, levde, levt, levd (to live)
Class III has stems ending in a vowel that is not -a, and adds -r in the present. The infinitive is identical to the stem. - ske-, ske, sker, skedde, skett, skedd (to occur, happen)
Class IV is comprised of the Germanic strong verbs. Here is one example. - finn-, finna, finner, fann, funnit, funnen (to find)
As in all the Germanic languages, there are strong verbs, which change their vowel sounds in the various tenses. For most Swedish strong verbs that have a verb cognate in English or German, that cognate is also strong, for example, "stryka/streichen/strike": | nfinitive | present | preterite | supine | past participle | | wedish | stryka (to cancel) | stryker | strk | strukit | struken | | erman | streichen (to strike) | streichen | strich | gestrichen | | nglish | strike (to strike) | strike | struck | stricken | Adverbs An adjective can be transformed into an adverb by adding the suffix "-t". - tjock (thick, fat) -> tjockt (thickly)
- snabb (quick) -> snabbt (quickly)
Prepositions Word order
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