# Swedish: Adjectival Declension



## 盲人瞎馬

*Indefinite
Singular*Common
Neuterspänd
spänt*Definite*
*Singular*Masculine
Allspände
spända*Plural
*spända


Hello. I'd like to know how declension works in Swedish. I come from Finnish so I'm fairly familiarized with the declension system, but I'm having some difficulties understanding how the ones in swedish are used. 
The declension board I wrote above is from Wiktionary. Concerning the indefinite singular, I (suppose) understand it perfectly:

En spänd lina
Ett spänt snöre 

However, I don't understand the whole "masculine" thing when it comes to definite nouns.

Which one (from spände and spanda) is one supposed to use when saying "the tight rope" and "the tight string"?

Thanks.


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## Göte

Vitalore said:


> However, I don't understand the whole "masculine" thing when it comes to definite nouns.



It is rarely compulsory to decline on semantic gender ("sexus"). The a-form is always used for women and things, and it may also be used on men. It is not wrong to say "den söta pojken" or "den trevliga mannen". But many people's sense of language prefer e-forms here, and some think even that the a-forms are impossible.

Translated citation from http://blog.svd.se/sprak/tag/genus/

Since both *lina* and *snöre* are things then there is no question, use "spända".


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## Tjahzi

Göte said:


> It is rarely compulsory to decline on semantic gender ("sexus"). The a-form is always used for women and things, and it may also be used on men. It is not wrong to say "den söta pojken" or "den trevliga mannen". But many people's sense of language prefer e-forms here, and some think even that the a-forms are impossible.
> 
> Translated citation from http://blog.svd.se/sprak/tag/genus/
> 
> Since both *lina* and *snöre* are things then there is no question, use "spända".


Indeed.

Just to further clarify. Technically, Swedish could be considered to have four genders based on the pronoun system: male animate (_han_), female animate (_hon_), utrum (_den_) and neutrum (_det_), where utrum contains inanimate masculine and feminine words. The alternative declension pattern, which is optional, applies only to these animate masculine nouns.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Göte said:


> It is rarely compulsory to decline on semantic gender ("sexus"). The a-form is always used for women and things, and it may also be used on men. It is not wrong to say "den söta pojken" or "den trevliga mannen". But many people's sense of language prefer e-forms here, and some think even that the a-forms are impossible.
> 
> Translated citation from http://blog.svd.se/sprak/tag/genus/
> 
> Since both *lina* and *snöre* are things then there is no question, use "spända".



Can I just ignore it altogether and use the -a form instead?


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## mexerica feliz

Vitalore said:


> Can I just ignore it altogether and use the -a form instead?



But it would sound funny in _Götaland_ and in _Jämtland_.

_den lille pojken _is preferred there,
_den lilla pojken_ sounds very _Svealand-ish


_  Lilla is etimologically a feminine form, as observed in modern Norwegian:

_gutten er liten  _m. (the boy is small)
_jenta er lita _f. (the girl is small)


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## Tjahzi

Vitalore said:


> Can I just ignore it altogether and use the -a form instead?


Yes.


mexerica feliz said:


> But it would sound funny in _Götaland_ and in _Jämtland_.
> 
> _den lille pojken _is preferred there,
> _den lilla pojken_ sounds very _Svealand-ish_


No, there isn't really such a connotation.


mexerica feliz said:


> Lilla is etimologically a feminine form, as observed in modern Norwegian:
> 
> _gutten er liten  _m. (the boy is small)
> _jenta er lita _f. (the girl is small)



Modern? On Google "jenta er lita" generates 654 hits while "jenta er liten" generates 54 600.


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## mexerica feliz

Tjahzi said:


> Yes.
> No, there isn't really such a connotation.
> 
> 
> Modern? On Google "jenta er lita" generates 654 hits while "jenta er liten" generates 54 600.



The Norwegian linguistic term for Modern Norwegian is _nynorsk_, literally _New Norwegian_.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Norwegian


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## Tjahzi

...which explains why nobody seem to use those forms.


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## mexerica feliz

Tjahzi said:


> ...which explains why nobody seem to use those forms.



I don't agree with ''nobody''


Bokmaal:
''hun var lita'' About 312,000 results
''hun var liten''  About 138,000 results
---
Nynorsk:
''ho var lita'' About 116,000 results


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## Ben Jamin

mexerica feliz said:


> The Norwegian linguistic term for Modern Norwegian is _nynorsk_, literally _New Norwegian_.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Norwegian


 It doesn't sound good to translate Nynorsk with Modern Norwegian. Wkipedia translates it as *Neo-Norwegian* or *New Norwegian, *which is better,but even better is to leave the name utranslated, just like *Katharevousa *in Greek. The whole issue is so controversial that any translation will be offending to somebody, and met with protests.
I like most the "Neo-Norwegian" translation, as ithe language is actually a mixture of different West Coast Norwegian dialects with Old Norwegian from before the XV century. So "modernity" in Nynorsk translates mostly into taking back in use obsolete and regionally preserved forms. In this respect it reminds of *Ivrit*.
Formants and lexems taken as late loans from Danish and German are forbidden. In this Nynorsk is as puristic as Icelandic. Swedish loans I don't know much about, but suppose that they are also frowned upon.


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## Lugubert

mexerica feliz said:


> But it would sound funny in _Götaland_ and in _Jämtland_.
> 
> _den lille pojken _is preferred there,
> _den lilla pojken_ sounds very _Svealand-ish
> _





Tjahzi said:


> Yes.
> No, there isn't really such a connotation.



With due respect to Tjahzi's innumerable insightful posts and his tag (Göteborg = Götaland, We(s)t coast), I'm at least partly with mexerica feliz on this one. I'd even say that _lilla_ + masc. noun sounds Stockholm (East coast) to me.

On the other hand, even national poet Evert Taube, who was born and brought up on the West coast, originally sings _Se svart*a* Rudolf han dansar_ 'Behold black Rudolph dancing'. Some editions acknowledge R's gender and location and write _Se svart*e* Rudolf han dansar_.

Anyway, in my early life, the Gothenburg afternoon paper GT was always den lell*a* rö*a* (understood _Den lella röa tining*a*_ (the little red newspaper (f.); _Den lilla röda tidningen_). ('The little red paper' had pink first and last leaves.)

Even Mother (born etc. in Eastern Sweden) caught on to this feature of our Westernization. I wouldn't have occurred to her to refer to me as her _min lilla pojke_ 'my liddle boy'); it was always _min lelle pôjk_, adding another local language feature.


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## Tjahzi

Hehe, fair enough.

I remember us having had this discussion (with the same example ) in the past, and you are of course correct. What I meant to stress in my previous post was not necessarily that there can't be such a connotation, but rather that it shouldn't be expected. 

So to sum up, some people make this association while others don't, and we can only speculate about who's in majority. Although the age divide suggest that this practice might be falling out of use...


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