A Minimal Syntax of Swedish

1. Introduction

Swedish is a verb second language (no more than one constituent may precede the tensed verb) with obligatory subject, no subject-verb agreement and no cases. It has a relatively simple verbal inflectional system and a rather complicated nominal inflectional system. This minimal overview of Swedish syntax will mainly be concerned with word order properties. The most important parts of the inflectional system is presented in section 2, sentential word order is presented in section 3, and the word order of noun phrases (phrases headed by a noun) in section 4.

2. Inflection

2.1. The verb

The verb denotes different types of events or states, e.g. actions (He opened the door), processes (He arrived late), states (He has a red bike). Prototypically it describes what somebody is doing (he in the examples given).

The Swedish verb is inflected for tense, but does not agree with the subject. It is not inflected for mood (subjunctive) or aspect. Infinitive has a form distinct from the tensed forms, usually it ends in -a. The present tense ends in -r. Like the other Germanic languages, Swedish forms the past tense with a dental suffix (weak conjugation) or a change in the stem vowel (strong conjugation). After auxiliary ha 'have', Swedish has a specific uninflected verb form called the supine, which always ends in -t. The supine is morphologically related to the past participle, but differs in certain respects. Notice that the past participle, like the adjective (section 2.4), agrees with the subject in number and gender; in the examples below it is in common gender singular (Swedish has two genders, common gender and neuter):

(1)

The passive voice is formed either with auxiliary bli 'become' + past participle, vara + past participle, or with the ending -s, attached to the inflected form (in the present tense, the final -r is dropped). The passive forms of kamma 'comb' and läsa 'read' are given in (2):

(2) a. kammas (inf.), kammas (pres.), kammades (past), kammats (supine)

b. läsas (inf.), läses (pres.), lästes (past), lästs (supine)

2.2. The noun

The noun refers to types of living beings (woman, cat, beetle) and objects (house, book, stone), material (wood, iron), actions (decision, journey), properties (length, strength), times (hour, year) etc.

The Swedish noun is inflected for number and definiteness; it is also inflected for genitive case. Plural ends in -ar, -er, -or, -r , -n or nothing; in addition, there are some irregular plurals. The form of the definiteness ending is dependent on the gender of the noun. As mentioned, Swedish has two genders, common gender and neuter; characteristically for the neuter gender is that it ends in -t in singular. The order of the inflectional endings is stem > plural > definiteness > genitive. In table (2) we present the full forms of nouns from the different declensions.

(2)

2.3. Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are words like I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The Swedish personal pronouns have three forms, corresponding to nominative (compare English I), oblique (xompare English me), and possessive (compare English mine). As in the other Germanic languages, the paradigms of the personal pronouns are composed from different stems in different case forms. See the overview in (3).

(3)

The possessive forms in 1st and 2nd person also agree with their head noun in number and gender, some examples are given in (4):

2.4. The Adjective

The adjective denotes a permanent or occasional property, as in He is intelligent, She is happy. It is used either predicatively, as in the examples just mentioned, or attributively, as in an intelligent man, a happy woman. When used predicatively, the Swedish adjective agrees with its head noun in number and gender. When the adjective is used attributively it has different forms depending on the noun: with an indefinite noun it is inflected in the same way as when it is used predicatively (han är stor 'he is big', en stor man 'a big man'; huset är stort 'house-the is big' ett stort hus 'a big house'), but with a definite noun it has a reduced inflection, mainly ending in -a in all genders, both singular and plural (den stora mannen 'the big man-the', det stora huset 'the big house-the). Compare the overview in (3)

(5)

The adjective is also inflected for comparative and superlative with the endings -are/-ast: lycklig - lycklig-are - lyckligast-ast 'happy - happier -happiest'. It is also possible to express comparative meaning with mera 'more' + adjective and superlative with mest 'most' + adjective.

3. Sentential word order

3.1. The initial part of the clause

Like all the other Germanic languages, except English, Swedish is a verb second language, i.e. no more than one constituent may precede the tensed verb in main clauses. Almost any constituent may be in the position in front of the tensed verb, although in most cases we find the subject here (in 60-70% of the cases), as in (6a). When the subject is not in initial position, it is usually found immediately to the right of the tensed verb, see (6b-e). It is also common to find an adverbial in first position (20-30% of the cases) as in (6b,c), or the object (5-10% of the cases) as in (6d). In yes-no questions the sentence begins with the tensed verb (6e). In the examples in (6) the tensed verb is bold underlined, and the constituent in front of it in bold italics.

(6) a. Han hittade faktiskt pengarna under sängen. (subj + tensed verb)

he found actually money-the under bed-the

He probably found the money under the bed.

b. Under sängen hittade han faktiskt pengarna. (adverbial + tensed verb)

under bed-the found he actually money-the

c. Faktiskt hittade han pengarna under sängen. (adverbial + tensed verb)

actually found he money-the under bed-the

d. Pengarna hittade han faktiskt under sängen. (object + tensed verb)

money-the found he actually under bed-the

e. Hittade han faktiskt pengarna under sängen? (tensed verb)

found he actually money-the under bed-the

In wh-questions, the wh-word is in first position; the wh-questions corresponding to (6a-c) are given in (7):

(7) a. Vem hittade faktiskt pengarna under sängen? (subj + tensed verb)

who found actually money-the under bed-the

Who found the money under the bed?

b. Var hittade han faktiskt pengarna? (adverbial + tensed verb)

where found he actually money-the

Where did he find the money?

c. Vad hittade han faktiskt under sängen? (object + tensed verb)

what found he actually under bed-the

What did he find under the bed?

Occasionally, the predicative (see (8)) or the verbal particle (see (9)) is in first position.

(8) Sjuk var han inte. (predicative + tensed verb)

sick was he not

He was not sick.

(9) Ut kastade han bollen. (particle + tensed verb)

out threw he ball-the

He threw the ball out.

The word order of embedded clauses is the same, with the important difference that the complementizer and not the tensed verb is in second or first position; in this case the tensed verb is found further to the right. Some examples are given in (10), where the embedded clause is within brackets. As in main clauses, the subject is either in front of the complementizer (10a) or immediately to the right of it (10b,c).

(10) a. Det var [han som faktiskt fann pengarna under sängen]. (subj. + comp)

it was he that actually found money-the under bed-the

It was he who actually found the money under the bed.

b. Jag frågade [under vems säng som han faktiskt hittade pengarna]. (adverbial+comp)

I asked under whose bed that he actually found money-the

I asked under whose bed he actually found the money.

c. Vet du [vad som han faktiskt fann under sängen]? (object + comp)

Know you what that he actually found under bed-the

Do you know what he actually found under the bed?

d. Jag trodde [att han faktiskt fann pengarna under sängen]. (comp)

I thought that he actually found money-the under bed-the

I thought that he actually found the money under the bed

The general word order pattern for the initial part of Swedish clauses is summarized in (11):

(11) First position > Tensed verb / complementizer> Rest of the clause

We will now proceed to present the general word order for the Rest of the clause.

3.2. The Rest of the clause

We have already seen that the subject is immediately to the right of the tensed verb / complementizer, when it is not fronted. Hence, the first element of the Rest of the clause is the subject. Scanning through the examples given above, we notice that the subject is followed by the sentence adverbial, if there is one, followed by the tensed verb (in embedded clauses), the object and circumstantial adverbials. This word order is summarized in (12), and illustrated with some of the examples in (6)-(10):

(12) R E S T O F T H E C L A U S E

When there is an auxiliary, this is found in the Tensed verb position in the initial part in main clauses, as in (13a), or in the Verb position in the Rest of the clause (13b) in embedded clauses; in both cases, the infinite verb is always in the Verb position in the Rest of the clause:

(13) R E S T O F T H E C L A U S E

In the last part of this introduction we will look at the word order of differnt types of phrases.

3. The word order of noun phrases

Phrases with a noun as its head are called noun phrases: the man, the last man, a man from Rio, many happy men in blue jeans.

The general word order of a Swedish noun phrase is given in (16), with examples:

(16)

When a noun phrase in the definite form contains an adjectival attributive, the adjective is preceded by a free article, as seen in (16e). In such cases, there is double definiteness in the noun phrase:

(17) a. den söta flickan b. det svåra beslutet

the pretty girl-the the difficult decision-the

  The ten most common Swedish words in newspaper texts

och and (conjunction)

i in (preposition)

att that (introducer of subordinate clauses)

to (introducer of infinitival clauses)

en a (indef. article), numeral ('one')

som that (introducer of relative clauses)

as (introducer of comparative clauses)

also used as introducer of embedded questions

det it (personal pronoun, neuter sg, 3rd person)

there (expletive subject)

that (demonstrative)

the (definite article neuter sg)

är am, is, are (present tense of the verb 'to be')

av of, by (in agent phrases), from (preposition)

den it (personal pronoun, common gender sg., 3rd person)

that (demonstrative)

the (definite article, common gender sg)

på on, at (preposition)