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Swedish 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.
Articles
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.
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.
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)
Nouns form the plural in a variety of ways:
It is customary to classify Swedish nouns into five groups: -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: växt (plant), växter (plants); lök (onion), lökar (onions).
- All neuter nouns ending in a vowel add -n. For example: äpple (apple), äpplen (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.
Midly 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: gås (goose), gäss (geese); man (man), män (men).
Pronouns
Adjectives
The Adjectives of swedish are declined according to the gender, numerus and status of definitivity of the noun. Nouns of the common gender, in singularis indefinite form get the undeclined form of the adjektive. Nouns of the neutral gender, in singularis indefinite form generally get the suffix -t.
- En stor elefant - A large elephant (stor - large)
- Ett stort lejon - A large lion
Nouns in pluralis or definite form, or both, get the suffix -a.
- En lång man - A tall man (lång - tall)
- Den långa mannen - The tall man
- Långa män - Tall men
- De långa männen - The tall men
Numerals
Cardinal numbers
The numbers from zero to twelve in Swedish are:
- noll, en, två, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, åtta, 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
[to 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.
e.g. Cognates of the strong "Strike",
with present, preterite, (supine), and past participle
stryka (to cancel, Swedish) stryker, strök, (strukit), struken
streichen (to strike, German) streichen, strich, gestrichen
strike (to strike, English) strike, struck, stricken
Adverbs
Prepositions
Word order
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