Features
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Case: case
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Case is usually an inflectional feature of nouns, helping to specify the role of the noun phrase in the sentence. Swedish makes use of three cases: nominative, accusative, and genitive. The accusative is found only in pronouns (PRON), while the nominative/genitive distinction occurs with nouns (NOUN), proper nouns (PROPN) and adjectives (ADJ).
Nom: nominative
The base form, typically used as a citation form (lemma).
Examples
- [sv] att ta ansvar “to take responsibility”
- [sv] riskerna är stora “the risks are large”
Acc: accusative
In many languages used for direct objects of verbs. In Swedish this form is only used for personal pronouns.
Examples
- [sv] du behöver dem “you need them”
- [sv] ta med dig “take with you”
Gen: genitive
Prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor; it would often be translated by the English preposition of. The genitive in Swedish does not however always imply possession, for example Stillhetens hav “Sea of Tranquility”
Examples
- [sv] eftermiddagens övningar “the afternoon’s exercises”
- [sv] patientens ekonomi “the patient’s finances”
Definite: definiteness or state
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Definiteness in Swedish is an inflectional feature of nouns, as well as adjectives and determiners that agree with nouns. Its value distinguishes whether we are talking about something known and concrete, or something general or unknown.
Ind: indefinite
Examples
- [sv] en särskild broschyr “a particular brochure”
- [sv] ett lotteri “a lottery”
Def: definite
Examples
- [sv] vinsterna “the profits”
- [sv] de särskilda förmånerna “the special benefits”
Degree: degree of comparison
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Degree of comparison is typically an inflectional feature of some adjectives and adverbs.
Pos: positive, first degree
This is the base form that merely states a quality of something, without comparing it to qualities of others.
Examples
- [sv] vanlig karakteristik “normal characteristic”
- [sv] naturliga resurser “natural resources”
Cmp: comparative, second degree
The quality of one thing is compared to the same quality of another.
Examples
- [sv] färre barn “fewer children”
- [sv] att röka mindre “to smoke less”
Sup: superlative, third degree
The quality of one thing is compared to the same quality of all other things within a set.
Examples
- [sv] längst till höger “furthest to the right”
- [sv] största valdistriktet “largest constituency”
Gender: gender
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Gender is a lexical feature of nouns and an inflectional feature of other parts of speech (adjectives, determiners) that mark agreement with nouns.
Com: common gender
Swedish does not distinguish masculine/feminine most of the time but does distinguish neuter vs. non-neuter (neutrum/utrum). The non-neuter is called common gender.
Examples
- [sv] en ogift mor “an unmarried mother”
- [sv] anmälan blir ifylld “the report is filled in”
Neut: neuter gender
Nouns and other parts of speech that are neither masculine nor feminine (grammatically).
Examples
- [sv] fullt bostadstillägg “full housing supplement”
- [sv] det första kravet “the first requirement”
Masc: masculine gender
Some adjectives, when referring specifically to a male person, take a masculine form in Swedish.
Examples
- [sv] den arbetslöse “the unemployed (man)”
- [sv] den brittiske författaren “the British author”
Mood: mood
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Ind: indicative
The indicative can be considered the default mood. A verb in indicative merely states that something happens, has happened or will happen, without adding any attitude of the speaker.
Examples
- [sv] de kompletterar varandra “they complement each other”
- [sv] vi behöver “we need”
Imp: imperative
The speaker uses imperative to order or ask the addressee to perform the action of the verb.
Examples
- [sv] låt oss “let us”
- [sv] jämför dem “compare them”
Sub: subjunctive / conjunctive
In modern Swedish the subjunctive is mainly used in certain fixed expressions and as a conditional form. It is also occassionally used in the more traditional sense, expressing actions that are subjective or otherwise uncertain in subordinate clauses.
Examples
- [sv] Leve Sverige! “Long live Sweden!”
- [sv] det vore önskvärt “it would be desirable”
- [sv] som om jag vore försumlig “as if I were neglectful”
Number: number
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Number in Swedish is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners.
Sing: singular number
Examples
- [sv] resultat “result”
- [sv] en “a/an”
- [sv] traditionell “traditional”
- [sv] vägen “the road”
Plur: plural number
Examples
- [sv] vi “we”
- [sv] personliga “personal”
- [sv] förutsättningar “prerequisites”
- [sv] några färdigheter “some skills”
Person: person
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Swedish verbs do not inflect for Person. Certain personal and possessive
pronouns can be considered to have Person as a feature. However, in Swedish this is always
completely unambiguous given the word form. The Person feature is not currently used in the
Swedish treebank. For further discussion of Person see the universal depency page (u-feat/person).
Poss: possessive
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Poss is a boolean feature of some determiners in Swedish, indicating whether it is possessive or not.
Yes: it is possessive
Note that there is no No value. If the word is not possessive, the
Poss feature will just not be mentioned in the FEAT column.
Examples
- min (common singular), mitt (neuter singular), mina (plural) “my”
- vars “whose”
PronType: pronominal type
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Pronominal type is a feature of (some) pronouns, determiners and pronominal adverbs in Swedish.
Int: interrogative pronoun, determiner, or adverb
Examples:
- Pronouns: vem “who”, vad “what”
- Determiners: vilken (common singular) “which”, vilket (neuter singular) “which”, vilka (plural) “which”
- Adverbs: när “when”, var “where”, hur “how”
Rel: relative pronoun, determiner, or adverb
Examples:
- Pronouns: som “that”, vilken “who”
- Determiners: vars, vilkens “whose”
- Adverbs: då “when”, där “where”
Note: Because the original Swedish treebank annotation uses a single category subsuming both interrogative and relative
(corresponding to the English wh-category), we currently do not disambiguate between Int and Rel, which means
that any word belonging to one of these categories is assigned the feature PronType=Int,Rel.
Tense: tense
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The Tense feature applies to verbs (VERB and AUX), specifying the time when the action took / takes place, in relation to the current moment or to another action in the utterance.
Note that we are defining features that apply to a single word. If a tense is constructed periphrastically (two or more words, e.g. present tense auxiliary verb + supine of the main verb) and none of the participating words are specific to this tense, then the features will not directly reveal the tense. For instance, [sv] Jag hade varit där “I had been there” is past perfect (pluperfect) tense, formed periphrastically by the simple past tense of the auxiliary att ha “to have” and the supine form of the main verb att vara “to be”. The auxiliary will be tagged VerbForm=Fin|Mood=Ind|Tense=Past and the participle will have VerbForm=Sup|Tense=Past; neither of the two will have Tense=Pqp, which is only used in languages where this tense can be directly represented morphologically on the verb.
Pres: present tense
The present tense denotes actions that are happening right now or that usually happen.
Examples
- [sv] hon säger saker “she says things”
- [sv] det blir svårare “it becomes more difficult”
Past: preterite
The past tense denotes actions that happened before the current moment. It can also be used in secondary clauses to express a wish or something that is not reality.
Examples
- [sv] innan stadskulturen började “before urban culture began”
- [sv] han önskar att han var i Spanien “he wishes that he was in Spain”
VerbForm: form of verb or deverbative
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Fin: finite verb
Verbs that inflect for mood (Mood), tense (Tense) or person
(Person) are finite and are assigned the VerbForm value Fin.
Examples
- [sv] krig är brutalt “war is brutal”
- [sv] du får ett vapen “you get a weapon”
Inf: infinitive
The infinitive is the citation form of verbs in Swedish. The infinitive marker in Swedish is “att”. The infinitive may be used together with auxiliaries to form periphrastic tenses.
Examples
- [sv] ett barn som ska lära sig att läsa “a child who will learn to read”
- [sv] de behöver sova “they need to sleep”
Part: participle
Participle is a non-finite verb form that in Swedish is used adjectively. The related supine form is used to form certain periphrastic verb tenses.
Examples
- [sv] ökad frånvaro “increased absence”
- [sv] vår bisulfitbehandlade potatis “our bisulfite-treated potato”
Sup: supine
Supine in Swedish is a special form of the past participle, used to form the composite past form of a verb. It is used after the auxiliary verb ha (to have) but not after vara (to be):
- Simple past: I ate (the) dinner = Jag åt maten (using preterite)
- Composite past: I have eaten (the) dinner = Jag har ätit maten (using supine)
- Past participle common: (The) dinner is eaten = Maten är uppäten (using past participle)
- Past participle neuter: (The) apple is eaten = Äpplet är uppätet
- Past participle plural: (The) apples are eaten = Äpplena är uppätna
Examples
- [sv] Labourpartiet har gjort försök “The Labour party has made attempts”
- [sv] antalet lägenheter har sjunkit “the number of apartments has decreased”
Voice: voice
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The Voice feature captures the distinction between active and passive for verbs (sv-pos/VERB and sv-pos/AUX). The value Pass is only used when the passive voice is realized morphologically. (Swedish in addition has a periphrastic passive similar to English: han blev jagad “he was chased”.)
Act: active voice
Examples
- [sv] det räcker “it suffices”
- [sv] avdraget sjunker “the deduction drops”
Pass: passive voice
Examples
- [sv] inkomst beskattas “income is taxed”
- [sv] det hanteras fel “it is handled incorrectly”