The Genitive Posted by Transparent Language on Sep 24, 2009 in Grammar
I think I wrote about it before, but probably last year. And since the question keeps coming back, it might be worth to revisit the genitive.
You see, as far as nouns go, and compared to other European languages (Finnish immediately comes to mind here), Swedish is very simple indeed. It has only one case ending, and that’s the genitive (or genitiv, as it’s called in Swedish). You all know what that thingie is, right? The genitive is a form of noun that denotes a person, or a thing, for that matter, that possesses something. In a very broad meaning and context.
In English it’s expressed by the ‘s ending, which, by the way, is often abused and misused. So if you normally struggle with the apostrophe in English, it might be very good news to you that there’s no apostrophe in the Swedish genitive.
So what is there? Not much really. You just stick “s” at the end of the word you want to use in the genitive case. Like this:
- Pers dotter är 12 år. – Per’s daughter is 12 years old.
Simple, isn’t it? It works like that not only with people, but with other nouns, as well.
Like this:
- Sveriges huvudstad heter Stockholm. – The capital of Sweden is Stockholm.
As you can see in the above example, sometimes the genitive case in English is expressed by using “noun+of”. In Swedish you just stick that “s” where needed.
Like this:
- Gatornas namn står på kartan. – The street names are on the map.
In this example, the noun “gator” (streets) already has an ending – “-na” (definite plural). But you still stick that “s” and your work there is done. And also, as you can see, sometimes in English you just use two nouns next to each other to express the idea of the genitive. In Swedish, all you need is that one, small “s”.
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Comments:
Mats:
A great entry as always!
The last sentence though could be translated more literally as “The names of the streets are on the map”. Likewise, the other way around, “Gatunamnen står på kartan” (but then you may have to mention why the a in gata turns into u, which is messy).
Maria Clara Soares Correia:
I got a mail with no text this time. Ant technical problem?
Don’t want to miss a word!
Love to all
Clara
Fritz:
Great post. However, it makes me wonder how you handle nouns that end in s. For example: Linus? gården är vacker.
Ann:
Names that end in s have no extra s. It’s just assumed.
I was reading Henning Mankel’s “Kinesen” and noticed that one of the characters, known by his initials JA (no periods), got “JA:s” as a genitive form. I’ve seen that colon used in different ways in Sweden.
Ann
Mats:
Colon is used when an abbreviation or a number gets a suffix (USA:s, EKG:n, 3:e), but also in contractions (s:t for sankt).
David:
One can in fact add an apostrophe at the end to mark genitive if the possessor ends in “-s” or is pronounced that way: “Tobias’ restaurang”, “Marx’ skrifter”. But there is no “s” after the apostrophe, and the use of the apostrophe is strictly voluntary.
One point of controversy previously has been how to use the “-s” genitive when the possessor is a full phrase. Is it “Konungens av Danmark bröstkarameller” or “Konungen av Danmarks bröstkarameller” (the cough drops belonging to the King of Denmark)? (Believe it or not, this is actually the example traditionally cited in the discussion!)
Previously, grammarians recommended the first form, but are now much more accepting of the second. This, of course, just makes it easier for the Swedish learner.
Stu:
So, just because I’m a little confused: are genitive and possessive synonyms of each other, as used in Swedish?
Seems to be, but I don’t want to reach too far in assuming so.