Posts tagged w/ word order

Word Order in Subordinate Clauses

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Mar
3
2009

Remember when we talked about adverbial clauses?

Yes, boring grammar stuff today, sorry! But we haven’t quite finished with the subject, and actually, the bit we will discuss today is interesting. What, you didn’t know that grammar can be interesting? Don’t believe me? Just wait and see for yourself! (And it’s easy, too – I promise!)

So, let’s dig out the last example from that previous post. Here it is:

  • Jag blir arg, om han kommer hit. – I get mad if he comes here.

Last time I told you about word order in such sentences. And then I mentioned that it gets all goofy when you add “inte” to the mix in that subordinate clause.

So, what happens is you want to say: I get mad if he doesn’t come here? Watch this:

  • Jag blir arg om han inte kommer hit.

See the odd location of “inte” in this example? It’s because “inte” is technically a sentence adverbial, and as such it is ALWAYS positioned BEFORE the verb in a subordinate clause.

Other examples of sentence adverbials are:

  • alltid,
  • ofta
  • aldrig

and other similar words.

So, if you want to say that you get mad, because he always comes late, how would you do it? Like that:

  • Jag blir arg, eftersom han alltid kommer för sent.

And just like “inte,” this “alltid” when used in a subordinate clause ends up BEFORE the verb.

And if you want to say that you DON’T get angry if he doesn’t come here? Easy!

  • Jag blir inte arg om han inte kommer hit.

See? It’s only in the subordinate clause that “inte” moves to the front of the verb.

Now, that wasn’t that bad, was it?
Easy peasy. But oddly enough, this word order bit is one of the most common mistakes that non-native speakers of Swedish tend to make. So, get this one right and you can make a very good impression by showing how duktig you are. :)

PS. When you read this post I will be moving house and most likely without an internet connection for a few days. I will be back here posting as usual vecka 11.

Vi ses!

 
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If - om, Adverbial Clauses

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Feb
10
2009

A couple of posts back Mo asked how to say stuff like “if you are….I am ….”
And since she asked, I thought it would be a good idea to talk today about adverbial clauses (adverbialsbisatser).

What is an adverbial clause? It’s when an entire subordinate clause sentence can act as an adverbial. Uh-huh, I hear you say. We’re moving into a heavy-duty grammar territory.

Not really. You use subordinate clauses every day in your normal conversations, you’ve just probably never realized that they have a fancy grammatical name.

Those subordinate clauses that are also adverbial clauses can be recognized by those typical opening words (bisatsord), such as:

  • när – when
  • innan – before
  • medan – while
  • därför att – because
  • om – if
  • trots att – although
  • eftersom – since, as

Mo had a question regarding a sentence construction with “if.”
So, let’s pick “if” from our list and see what happens.

  • Om – if

Jag blir arg om han kommer hit. – I get angry if he comes here.

See? Not so difficult.
It works just like in English.

Now, let’s take this example apart.

  • Jag – subject
  • Blir – verb
  • Arg - adjective
  • Om han kommer hit – adverbial

In English, you can flip the order without any problems, you can say either:
I get mad if he comes here.
Or
If he comes here I get mad.

Either way is fine.

Well, it’s a tiny bit more complicated in Swedish.
Remember what we said about the word order in sentences? That you can front an adverbial? And that the verb always comes second in a sentence?

So now, instead of a one-word adverbial, we have a whole sentence that’s an adverbial:

  • Om han kommer hit (if he comes here)

Then must come the verb: blir.
Then the subject: jag
And finally, the adjective: arg.

So what do we get if we put it all together? This:

  • Om han kommer hit, blir jag arg.

So, remember: those pesky little bisatsord like om must be followed by a subject of the clause. (example: om HAN kommer hit – han is the subject of this adverbial clause.)

If those pesky little bisatsord open a sentence, then you know that sentence is a long, huge adverbial clause that must be followed by a verb. (example: Om han kommer hit, BLIR jag arg. - blir is the verb in the main sentence.)

If those pesky little words sit inside, or rather, between sentences, it’s easy peasy, nothing changes. (example: Jag blir arg, OM han kommer hit.)

Well, nothing changes as long as you don’t have a not/inte in that sentence. But we’ll talk about that next time.

 
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How to Make Questions

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Jan
20
2009

All this talk about how bad the economy is and how we are struggling in the midst of a serious recession, and guess who went on vacation?
Anna did!

When you read this post, I will be frolicking on the beaches of Antigua. Or maybe Barbuda. This year I decided not to use a Swedish tour operator, I’ve tried them all and they all offer the same vacation packages to the same destinations. More or less. This winter we thought to try something new and went with a British company. But no matter the vacation packager or charter provider, it was definitely time to escape the weather – the temperature dropped to minus 16C the morning we left.

But it’s not the weather I want to talk about today. Let’s talk about questions, instead.
Vad? What?
Exactly!

You can form questions in Swedish just as you do it in English.
Hur? How?

Easy!

The easiest type of a question is the yes/no type. Ja/nej-frågar. You ask a question and you can answer it with a simple “yes” or “no.”
You do it in Swedish by putting the verb at the very beginning of the sentence. And voila! There’s a question! No silly auxiliary verbs here like “do.” Just flip the word order.
For example:

  • Regnar det? – Is it raining?
  • Är du på jobbet? - Are you at work?
  • Gillar du musik? – Do you like music?

Easy peasy.

The more complicated type of question is a question-word question - frågeordsfråga.
This type of question can’t be answered with just “yes” or “no.” And to make this sort of question you use “question words.” Yes, those are those pesky little guys that ask for:
what, who, when, where, how and so on.

Let’s see how it works in practice. We need a sufficiently goofy example with lots of details. How about this:

  • Min syster äter en banan i köket på morgonen. – My sister eats a banana in the kitchen in the morning.

You can ask:

  • Vad gör hon? – What does she do? - Hon äter. – She eats.
  • Vem äter? – Who eats? - Min syster. – My sister.
  • Vad äter hon? – What does she eat? - En banan. – A banana.
  • När äter hon? – When does she eat? - På morgonen. – In the morning.
  • Var äter hon? – Where does she eat? - I köket. – In the kitchen.

See? Just like in English. The question word always comes first. Then comes the verb. And what does come after the verb? Always the subject. No other words are needed.

So, the order is like that:

  • Q Word + Verb + Subject + (object) + ?

The only exception to this order is when a question word is a subject in itself:

  • Vem jobbar nu? – Who’s working now?
  • Vad hände? – What happened?

See? Again, just like in English. Next time we will examine those question words in detail.

But first you need to ask:
Who is on vacation?
Anna is!

 
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Thanksgiving and Word Order

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Nov
27
2008

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!

I don’t. I did it twice in the past, because my dearly beloved demanded turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes. Turkeys are easy to come by here, our local Ica MAXI carries them. And during November you can even spot frozen cranberries, so if you’re really dedicated you can make your own sauce. And recently I’ve even seen imported cornbread mix.

But, but, but… We were going to talk about grammar today, not about cornbread mixes. However, in order to talk about today’s topic, we need an example, and since it IS Thanksgiving, let’s pick a suitably festive sentence to play with. How about:

  • I USA är Thanksgiving en av de viktigaste helgerna.

And now let’s talk about subjects, objects and word order in Swedish. But first things first. Do you remember how it works in English? Sure you do!
In English we make sentences like this:

  • Subject + Verb + Object + Other Goofy Parts

At least theoretically, because what we write and what we say may be two very different things. Anyway, the same word order applies in Swedish, too. But if that’s the case then what’s up with our sample sentence? It sure does not start with a subject.

It doesn’t. If it started with a subject, it would look like this:

  • Thanksgiving är en av de viktigaste helgerna i USA.

So, here “Thanksgiving” is our subject, and “är” is our verb. And a whole bunch of little things following the verb completes the sentence. Then why doesn’t our original sentence start with a subject? Well, because Swedish is a lot more flexible in this respect than English.
“I USA” is an adverbial and you can begin a sentence with an adverbial as long as it is followed by a verb. This process is called “fronting the adverbial” and is perfectly correct and legitimate.

You can also front an object but because it’s not really that common, it should be done with care. For example:

  • Vi äter kalkon och paj idag. (normal word order: subject + verb + object + adverbial)

Now let’s front an object – which in this case is our “turkey and pie”:

  • Kalkon och paj äter vi idag. (object + verb + subject + adverbial)

See how “kalkon och paj” (turkey and pie) is followed by a verb? Remember, no matter what you stick at the front of a sentence, it must be followed by a verb. I know in the beginning it will feel like you need to put a subject there too, and that is one of the most common mistakes that people who are learning Swedish tend to make.

So now, let’s front the adverbial, shall we?

  • Idag äter vi kalkon och paj. (adverbial + verb + subject + object)

See, it’s not all that complicated. Different grammar books make it sound so hard and use all those fancy big words when explaining word order. Yet all you need to remember is this:

  • The verb (even if it’s just an auxiliary verb such as “kan” or “ska”) always comes SECOND.
 
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