Swedish grammar: nouns
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Contents |
General
Nouns (substantiv, or nomen as called by some) in Swedish.
Classifications
Inherent properties (inherenta/inneboende egenskaper)
Gender (genus)
Swedish consist of four genders: masculine, feminine, neutre and reale. But nowadays everyone is talking about four genders: n-gender and t-gender, sorted after the last letter of a noun in definite form in singular. It's like umbrella terms for the genders.
- n-gender
mannen (the man) Masculine
kvinnan (the woman) Feminine
boken (the book) Reale
Every noun which end in -n in definite form singular.
- t-gender
barnet Neutre
Every noun which end in -t in definite form singular.
Declination (deklination)
Inflected properties (böjningsegenskaper)
This table shows the possible inflections of three nouns, a breakdown of each property is given below. Articles not included!
| bok c ‘book’ | mus c ‘mouse’ | vatten n ‘water’ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | ||
| nom. | indef. | bok | böck-er | mus | möss | vatten | (vatten) |
| def. | bok-en | böck-er-na | mus-en | möss-en | vattn-et | (vattn-en) | |
| gen. | indef. | bok-s | böck-er-s | mus | möss | vatten-s | (vatten-s) |
| def. | bok-en-s | böck-er-na-s | mus-en-s | möss-en-s | vattn-et-s | (vattn-en-s) | |
Species (bestämdhet)
The nouns can be indefinite (obestämda) or definite (bestämda), this may be shown morphosyntactically with either inflections (suffixes) or articles, or both.
Inflection only:
- Indefinite: ordbok ‘dictionary’ (marked)
- Vi lånade ordbok som... We borrowed dictionary that... (strange, specific countable noun)
- Vi lånade kärlek som... We borrowed love that... (non-strange, uncountable noun)
- Ordbok som ordbok... Dictionary as dictionary... (non-strange, generic noun)
- Definite: ordboken ‘the dictionary’ (unmarked)
- Vi lånade ordboken som... We borrowed the [ðə] dictionary that...
Article only:
- Indefinite: en ordbok ‘a dictionary’ (unmarked)
- Vi lånade en ordbok... We borrowed a dictionary...
- Definite: den ordbok ‘the dictionary’ (marked)
- Vi lånade den ordbok som... We borrowed the [ði:] dictionary that...
Both article and inflection:
- Indefinite: en ordbok ‘a dictionary’ (in general practice, the same as with article only above)
- Vi lånade en ordbok som... We borrowed a dictionary that...
- Definite: den ordboken ‘the dictionary’ (unmarked/marked)
- Vi lånade den ordboken som... We borrowed the [ðə] dictionary that...
So what's the difference between the three ways of making a noun (or rather, nominal phrase) definite? Well, it's of course due to the context and discourse the phrase appears in, but consider this suggestion:
- From general (indefinite) to specific (definite): ordbok > ordboken > den ordbok > den ordboken
- And the same order for an uncountable abstract noun: kärlek > kärleken > den kärlek > den kärleken
That is: Generic > suffix > article > article + suffix. In English perhaps: Dictionary > the dictionary > the dictionary > the dictionary. But remember, just because den ordboken (lit. the dictionary-the, or DET dictionary-DET in linguistic notation) has two definite markers it doesn't mean the word is doubly definite!, just a little more definite perhaps...
Number (numerus)
Either singular ((singularis or ental ‘of one’) or plural (pluralis or flertal ‘of several’). This property is morphological, it inflects the noun to number with suffixes. Quite regular if one learns the declinations and a few rules. A few examples:
- Penna pennor—pen(cil), pen(cil)s (-or)
- Bok, böcker—book, books (-er)
- Sked, skedar—spoon, spoons (-ar)
- Hus, hus —house, houses (-∅, both forms alike)
- Mus, möss—mouse, mice (vowel change)
- Scarf, scarfar/scarves/scarfs—scarf, scarves/scarfs (-ar/-s, recent loanword)
Case (kasus)
Swedish can nowadays be said to have only two cases, the nominative (grundform, sometimes called huvudform) and the possessive/genitive (genitiv, sometimes called ägandeform), even though traces of other cases can be found in more or less stagnant expressions as well some parts of the grammar, e. g. the pronouns. The ending of the genitive is always -s—and although some use an apostrophe in names, it is not the original way of doing it.
- Kärlekens bok—love's book or book of the love
- Lisas boks titel—Lisa's book's title or the title of Lisa's book or the title of the book of Lisa
- Årets alla dagar—the years' all days or all days of the year
- Liss och Liz(s) önskningar—the wishes of Liss and Liz or Liss' and Liz' wishes
