Conference turris::scandia

55.0. "Rules for plurals" by VAXUUM::DEVRIES () Thu Feb 13 1986 13:42

    A discussion of rules for creating plurals is underway in the (Vnotes)
    notesfile ALIEN""::WORLDWIDE.  I have extracted this entry regarding
    Swedish rules (provided by that regular SCANDIA noter, Martin Minow)
    and present it to you, for (1) any additions you may have to the
    Swedish rules, and (2) any variations you may wish to provide for
    neighboring countries.
    
    I plan to extract your replies and replay them into the Worldwide
    notesfile, to provide more complete information there, unless you
    object.
    
    (Thanks, Martin, for these rules.  This is Worldwide Note number 216.22.)
    
    --Mark
    ============================================================================

    Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian have fairly complex pluralization
    rules.  (The following dicusses Swedish only, but Danish and
    Norwegian and, I suspect, Icelandic, are quite similar).
                                                                
    First, you have to know the class of the word (animate, neuter):

      Singular		Plural
      bil [auto]	bilar
      flicka [girl]	flickor
      hus [house]	hus

    The "animate" case adds [some vowel]+r, the "neuter" case adds nothing.

    Next, you must realize that the definite article is also suffixed:

      Sing. Indef.	Sing. Def.	Plur. Indef.	Plur. Def.
      bil [car]		bilen [the car]	bilar [cars]	bilarna [the cars]
      flicka		flickan		flickor		flickorna
      hus		huset		hus		husen

    Also, there is a possesive marker [-s] that applies:

      bil [car], 		bils [a car's],
      bilen [the car], 		bilens [the car's]
      bilar [cars]		bilars [cars']
      bilarna [the cars]	bilarnas [the cars']

    Furthermore, there a quite a few "irregular" plurals, as well as
    accent shifts reminiscent of German umlauting.  Loan words cause
    interesting problems, too:

      hobby [hobby]		hobbyn [the hobby]
      hobbisar [hobbies]	hobbisarna [the hobbies]

      dator [computer]		datorna [the computer]
      datorer [computers]	datorna [the computers]

    Actually, "dator" isn't a loan word, but was a new coinage build
    by analogy to "motor".

    Martin.

    The rules sound correct to me. I have Swedish as my mother tongue
    and really can not state the rules, but what Martin says seems to
    be right. In the examples the only error is for the word "dator".

    This should be:
    
      dator [computer]		datorn [the computer]
      datorer [the computer]	datorerna [the computers]
    
    
    /Olof Gulln�s

    quite right, but isn't "datorer" "computers" and not "the computer"?