# Swedish: väntar barn



## kilton

Hello,

An 8sidor article has the title _Victoria väntar barn_, as well as the following sentence:

_Kronprinsessan Victoria och prins Daniel ska ha barn i mars nästa år.
_
The usage of _barn_ here sounds plural to me, so it's confusing. Is this just the standard usage of_ barn_ when saying that someone is pregnant? Would it be incorrect or weird to say _väntar ett barn_ or _ska ha ett barn?_

Thanks!


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## Alxmrphi

What about it seems plural to you?
*
ska* *ha* = shall have (are going to have)
This "have" (ha) is the infinitive, which comes after a modal verb (just like in English), not the conjugated plural (c.f. has/have). That's the only thing I can see that might make you see anything plural about it. But even that would be linked to the subject rather than the object. The form doesn't change in Swedish for this group of words (barn = child/children).

It would in a language like Icelandic barn->börn(u) where the "u" ending has dropped off in the modern language, but it's "remembered" in an ablaut shift to show it used to be there, but as for Swedish it'd be the same word, so maybe you're reading it as plural through familiarity with that form, but it's also the singular version. I am not sure how you'd be able to say "She has kids/children" and be specific of how many exactly (one or more).


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## kilton

Hello,

The lack of _ett_ before _barn_ is what makes it sound plural to me.


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## Alxmrphi

Ah, my familiarity with the lack of an indefinite article in Icelandic led me to read this naturally as being singular.
My bad.

Best wait for the Swedes.


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## Tjahzi

Although you are correct in that absence of indefinite article usually means plural for neuter nouns, this phrase can be analyzed in a number of different ways.

I'd say that the number is not plural, yet not singular, but rather, a type of _general number_ (if the term is unfamiliar to you, don't worry, I just invented it). Swedish has a bunch of phrases in which the number is not of importance, or assumed. Usually, these phrases are a matter of _having_ or the _presence _of something. Such as _ha bil, ha pojkvän/flickvän, ha(/skaffa/vänta) barn, ha bostad_. (The more I think of it, it seems that virtually every question beginning with _Har du_ in which the object is singular/unimportant is formed without the article.)
I believe we would be making it too simple to just say that it's just assumed that they are all singular but that the indefinite article is unnecessary (though, it certainly is unnecessary), because these words can be both plural and singular ("by form"). I'm having troubles finding other aspects which could identify this usage yet, but I'll keep looking into it. So far, it does indeed seem to be about cases in which the number is either assumed or unimportant.

Saying _väntar ett barn_ would be, apart from the fact that we don't know if it's twins or not (as far as I know) and as such can't confirm the singularity, very awkward, simply because no one would ever say that.


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## AutumnOwl

It's not just _ha bil _etc, it's the same with phases such as: _Bor du i hus eller lägenhet? Jag bor i lägenhet. Går du i skola?_


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## robzet

I think the noun _barn_ in this case is more conceptual than meaning the specific child (same with _pojkvän_/_flickvän_, _bostad_ etc in the examples above). Furthermore, I don't think this is specific to Swedish. In English, for instance, you would say

Do you have gum?
I brought schampoo.
I like water.

In all of these examples, the noun is referring to a substance (or concept) rather than a specific item. You could actually say _a water_ / _several waters_ (in Swedish too: _ett vatten_ / _flera vatten_), but you are then referring to the actual item (being a lake or something).

So in the original phrase _Viktoria väntar barn_, the noun refers to the "substance", or rather concept, of child.

I'm sure this way of using nouns has a proper grammatical name, but I don't know what it is. Anyone?


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## Alxmrphi

> I'm sure this way of using nouns has a proper grammatical name, but I don't know what it is. Anyone?


Those nouns fit under the heading of 'uncountable' nouns in English, so are naturally not consistent with being put next to numbers.
So the idea of singularity/plurality is not inherent in their meanings (for the most part).


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## robzet

Thanks Alxmrphi!

Then my post could be condensed to:

In the phrase _Viktoria väntar barn_, the noun _barn_ is neither singular nor plural. It is an uncountable version of the in many cases countable noun _barn_.


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## kilton

Thanks everyone! Got it now.


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