User:Peter Isotalo/Swedish

Lead
Swedish is a North Germanic language spoken natively by 9.6 million people, predominantly in Sweden (as the sole official language), and in parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to some extent with Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Both Norwegian and Danish are generally easier to read than to listen to because of difference in accent and tone when speaking. Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It has the most speakers of the North Germanic languages.

Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descending from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized.

The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause. Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections. Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in the object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case, or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s, then seen as a clitic. Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular. Adjectives are compared into the comparative and the superlative and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme.

Grammar
Swedish grammar is largely analytic, meaning that grammar is expressed through which words are placed in relation to each other, and through prepositions and a few particles. The only case that is still used for nouns is a possessive -s, mostly identical to English (as in "the cat's paws"). Like English, personal pronouns (she, they, we, etc.) still retain separate object forms (her, them, us).

Nouns and adjectives are declined in genders, number and definiteness. Nouns belong to one of two genders: common and neuter. This also determines how adjectives are inflected. . Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – which matches the noun they modify. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding a suffix to the common form of the adjective. The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form. Below is a table that shows these inflections using the adjective vit ("white) together with the noun fisk ("fish").

Definite and indefinite forms
The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. Definite articles, similar to English "the", are used for variations to the definiteness of a noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners (similar to English "this, that, those", etc.) when used with adverbs such as "here" (här) or "there" (där). Below are a few examples that illustrate this use:


 * den där fisken refers to a specific fish
 * den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense
 * fisken with no pronoun or determiners would be mostly equivalent to "the fish" in English

The choice between indefinite or definite forms can often be used to refer to signal the difference between individual objects and concepts, or instances of usage in contrast to general objects and concepts and habitual usage. For example, the statements de köpte bil ("they bought (a) car") or de har bil ("they have (a) car") signals that the car purchase was for the first time and that the persons who did it can now count themselves in the category of car owners. This is in contrast to de köpte bilen ("they bought the car") or de har bilen ("they have the car") signals that the persons have bought, or are in possession of, a specific car. The use of the definite form in this case would imply that it is not their only car, and that they might have been car owners in the past. This can be extended to other actions, as in äta frukt vs äta frukten ("eat a/the fruit") or bygga hus vs bygga huset ("build a/the house").

Pronouns
Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides the two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det, usually termed common and neuter. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon, for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms:

Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to the subject in a clause, a trait which is restricted to North Germanic languages:


 * Anna gav Maria sin bok.; "Anna gave Maria her [Anna's] book." (reflexive)
 * Anna gav Maria hennes bok.; "Anna gave Maria her [Maria's] book." (not reflexive)

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated according to tense. One group of verbs (the ones ending in -er in present tense) has a special imperative form (generally the verb stem), but with most verbs the imperative is identical to the infinitive form. Perfect and present participles as adjectival verbs are very common:


 * Perfect participle: en stekt fisk; "a fried fish" (steka = to fry)
 * Present participle: en stinkande fisk; "a stinking fish" (stinka = to stink)

In contrast to English and many other languages, Swedish does not use the perfect participle to form the present perfect and past perfect. Rather, the auxiliary verb har ("have"), hade ("had") is followed by a special form, called supine, used solely for this purpose (although often identical to the neuter form of the perfect participle):


 * Perfect participle: målad, "painted" – supine målat, present perfect har målat; "have painted"
 * Perfect participle: stekt, "fried" – supine stekt, present perfect har stekt; "have fried"
 * Perfect participle: skriven, "written" – supine skrivit, present perfect har skrivit; "have written"

When building the compound passive voice using the verb att bli, the past participle is used:


 * den blir målad; "it's being painted"
 * den blev målad; "it was painted"

There exists also an inflected passive voice formed by adding -s, replacing the final r in the present tense:


 * den målas; "it's being painted"
 * den målades; "it was painted"

In a subordinate clause, the auxiliary har is optional and often omitted, particularly in written Swedish.


 * Jag ser att han (har) stekt fisken; "I see that he has fried the fish"

Subjunctive mood is occasionally used for some verbs, but its use is in sharp decline and few speakers perceive the handful of commonly used verbs (as for instance: vore, månne) as separate conjugations, most of them remaining only as set of idiomatic expressions.

Prepositions
Where other languages may use grammatical cases, Swedish uses numerous prepositions, similar to those found in English. As in modern German, prepositions formerly determined case in Swedish, but this feature can only be found in certain idiomatic expressions like till fots ("on foot", genitive).

Syntax
As Swedish is a Germanic language, the syntax shows similarities to both English and German. Like English, Swedish has a subject–verb–object basic word order, but like German, it utilizes verb-second word order in main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial phrases and dependent clauses. (Adverbial phrases denoting time are usually placed at the beginning of a main clause that is at the head of a sentence.) Prepositional phrases are placed in a place–manner–time order, as in English (but not German). Adjectives precede the noun they modify. Verb-second (inverted) word order is also used for questions.