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Swabian German is a German dialect which has its own distinguished grammar, separating it from Standard German. This grammar forms the basis for the entire Swabian-speaking area. On top of this, Swabian shares many elements of its grammar (but not phonetics) with other dialects from the Upper German-speaking area. This article discusses a few of the basic rules, and it should be noted that there are exceptions to and regional deviations from them.

See also the main article → Swabian German

Cases
Swabian has three cases:Nominative, accusative and dative. The genitive only appears in set expressions and is no longer productive. In place of the genitive, Swabian makes use of two different constructions to express belonging: The nominative and accusative almost always sound the same in nouns. However, a clear difference can be see in personal pronouns, e.g., i/mi, du/di, mir/ons (I/me, you, we/us), and adjectives, as well as the masculine singular forms of demonstrative pronouns, e.g., där/denn, sällor/sälla (that). Differences in the pronunciation of personal pronouns in different regions of the Swabian-speaking area, e.g. ons/aos/aes, uich/eich (us) are phonetic, but not grammatical variants.
 * 1) the periphrastic dative with people and animals (i.e. animate nouns): Maem Vaddr sae Hemed.
 * 2) * Standard German: Meinem Vater sein Hemd or Das Hemd meines Vaters
 * 3) * English: My father's shirt
 * 4) the preposition vo with objects and concepts (i.e. inanimate nouns): D Rädor vo maem Audo
 * 5) * Standard German: Die Räder von meinem Auto or Die Räder meines Autos
 * 6) * English: My car's wheels

Plurals and diminutives
Plurals can be formed in four different ways:

a) Plurals without endings

All nouns whose plural ends in -e or -s in Standard German do not take an ending in Swabian. This is particularly common in masculine nouns. The stem of the word undergoes umlaut more often than in Standard German, e.g. Daag/Dääg (day), Waaga/Wääga (car), which distinguishes the singular from the plural. Where the plural forms are not umlauted, the singular and plural are identical.

b) Plurals with the ending -a (unstressed nasal a):

Plural nouns which end in -en in Standard German use this form in Swabian. These plural forms are particularly common in feminine nouns.

c) Plurals with the ending -ena:

This plural form has not regular correlation with a German form. It is the regular ending of some feminine nouns, but it also used occasionally with other feminine nouns. Perhaps it is preferred due to the influence of the feminine plural of words such as Beire/Beirena (female farmer or peasant), Segredäre/Segredärena (female secretary) etc.

The following are examples where -ena is used consistently: Kuche/Kuchena (kitchen) and Schual/Schualena (school) In this group there are also duosyllabic feminine nouns which have the fixed ending -e in the singuar, which almost never has an ending in Swabian.
 * Examples: Schdregge/Schdreggena (strech, route), Bråede/Bråedena (breadth), Leenge/Leengena (length), Fleche/Flechena (width).
 * Examples of irregular use : Schduub/Schduuba und Schduubena (living room), Dräbb /Dräbba und Dräbbena (stairs)

d) Plurals with the ending -or:

This plural form corresponds to the German ending -er, which sounds like -or in Swabian. This plural form is particularly common in neuter nouns, and it includes more words in Swabian than in German.


 * Examples (German -er): Holz/Helzor, Bridd/Briddor (board), Dach/Dechor (roof)
 * Other examples: Hefd/Hefdor (exercise book), Hemed/Hemedor (shirt)

e) Diminutives: These are formed by adding the endings -le (singular) and -la (plural). This allows a distinction between the singular and plural, unlike in Standard German, where -lein and -chen are used for both. The ending is appended directly to the stem of the noun. If the plural of the non-diminutive noun is formed with umlaut in the stem, then this is carried over to diminutive.
 * Example (Sg./Pl./Dim.): Volg /Velgor/Velgle (people, nation)

If the singular already has a suffix, the diminutive ending is still added directly to the stem. When the singular ends in -l (equivalent to the Standard German -el) and -a (German -en), a schwa is inserted between the stem and the diminutive ending.
 * Examples(Sg./Pl./Dim.): Bronna/Bronna/Brennale (well); Schlissl/Schlissl/Schlissele (key).