4 ms·

Swedish has masculine and neuter, but not feminine, interestingly enough.

by ksaj 7y ago

DFHippie 7y ago
In which case it's probably better to say it has an animate/inanimate distinction. I was told by someone interested in historical linguistics that Indo-European first developed an animate/inanimate noun class system and then the animate class developed a feminine subset.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- einr 7y ago
  In which case it's probably better to say it has an animate/inanimate distinction. No, this is not accurate, neither historically nor according to modern usage. Animate objects tend towards utrum but plenty of inanimate objects are utrum too and there are no hard rules or mnemonics you can use to divine which is which. It's "ett tåg" ("a train") but "en bil" ("a car"), "ett äpple" ("an apple") but "en banan" ("a banana"), "ett barn" (a child) but "en vuxen" (an adult). This is entirely arbitrary and non-obvious to non-native speakers and if you're learning Swedish, you just straight up have to learn which is which for every word.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    The biggest mindfuck about utrum/neutrum is that it exists in Danish and Norwegian as well, but the categorization is not 100% the same, some nouns are utrum in one language and neutrum in the other. So there's different arbitrary rules, and if you go from one of the Scandinavian languages to the other, you just have to learn the ones that aren't the same. For example, "a friendship" is "et venskab" in Danish, but "en vänskap" in Swedish.
blompa 7y ago
Masculine and feminine have merged into 'common'/'utrum', used mostly for animate objects as pointed out by a sibling comment, although not all animate objects (e.g. barn, lejon). Neuter has stayed as is. There are, however, remnants of the masculine/feminine distinction left: e.g. klockan is ofter referred to as feminine (hon), and the "-e" in "storebror" (as opposed to "-a" which is used for utrum today and feminine in the past).
- einr 7y ago
  There are, however, remnants of the masculine/feminine distinction left: e.g. klockan is ofter referred to as feminine (hon), and the "-e" in "storebror" (as opposed to "-a" which is used for utrum today and feminine in the past). The -e/-a ending is still in common use not only in constructions like "storebror" but in general in adjectives pointing to a female or male person ("den fule mannen", "den fula kvinnan") although this usage is falling out of favour a bit ("den fula mannen" would not generally sound wrong to most modern speakers) Another interesting remnant of old Norse that still lingers in modern Swedish is the accusative case ending -s in expressions like "till fjälls", "till skogs", "till sjöss", "till sängs" etc.

Swedish has masculine and neuter, but not feminine, interestingly enough.

by ksaj 7y ago

Swedish has masculine and neuter, but not feminine, interestingly enough.

In which case it's probably better to say it has an animate/inanimate distinction. I was told by someone interested in historical linguistics that Indo-European first developed an animate/inanimate noun class system and then the animate class developed a feminine subset.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
einr 7y ago
In which case it's probably better to say it has an animate/inanimate distinction. No, this is not accurate, neither historically nor according to modern usage. Animate objects tend towards utrum but plenty of inanimate objects are utrum too and there are no hard rules or mnemonics you can use to divine which is which. It's "ett tåg" ("a train") but "en bil" ("a car"), "ett äpple" ("an apple") but "en banan" ("a banana"), "ett barn" (a child) but "en vuxen" (an adult). This is entirely arbitrary and non-obvious to non-native speakers and if you're learning Swedish, you just straight up have to learn which is which for every word.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  The biggest mindfuck about utrum/neutrum is that it exists in Danish and Norwegian as well, but the categorization is not 100% the same, some nouns are utrum in one language and neutrum in the other. So there's different arbitrary rules, and if you go from one of the Scandinavian languages to the other, you just have to learn the ones that aren't the same. For example, "a friendship" is "et venskab" in Danish, but "en vänskap" in Swedish.

blompa 7y ago

Masculine and feminine have merged into 'common'/'utrum', used mostly for animate objects as pointed out by a sibling comment, although not all animate objects (e.g. barn, lejon). Neuter has stayed as is. There are, however, remnants of the masculine/feminine distinction left: e.g. klockan is ofter referred to as feminine (hon), and the "-e" in "storebror" (as opposed to "-a" which is used for utrum today and feminine in the past).

einr 7y ago
There are, however, remnants of the masculine/feminine distinction left: e.g. klockan is ofter referred to as feminine (hon), and the "-e" in "storebror" (as opposed to "-a" which is used for utrum today and feminine in the past). The -e/-a ending is still in common use not only in constructions like "storebror" but in general in adjectives pointing to a female or male person ("den fule mannen", "den fula kvinnan") although this usage is falling out of favour a bit ("den fula mannen" would not generally sound wrong to most modern speakers) Another interesting remnant of old Norse that still lingers in modern Swedish is the accusative case ending -s in expressions like "till fjälls", "till skogs", "till sjöss", "till sängs" etc.