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- "På fredag kommer brevet."
29 Comments
62
I understand you can't say "På fredag brevet kommer', but could you say 'Brevet kommer på fredag'?
This is just a matter of using proper terminology, but på fredag is not a clause at all since it does not have a subject and a verb. It's just an adverbial phrase. Saying that Swedish uses V2 sentence order does not exactly mean that the verb must always be the second word, but it has to be the second constituent of the sentence.
[På fredag] [kommer] [brevet].
[Time adverb] [verb] [subject].
Um, quick question… why is På fredag considered a subordinate clause? There isn't a subject and a verb. It's actually just an adverbial phrase in English. I'm not really seeing how this forces V2 word order.
Edit: Nevermind! Silly me forgot my German for a little bit there. V2 isn't just about subordinate clauses. It happens when an element takes the first 'spot' so to speak. In this instance, the adverbial phrase occupies that first position, so the verb must come second. I was simply confused by daneosaurus calling it a subordinate clause.
Check the tips and notes for conjunctions. The third to last paragraph states that if a sentence begins with a subordinate clause, the verb must immediately follow that subordinate clause. In this sentence "på fredag" is a subordinate clause (basically meaning it can't be a sentence on it's own), so the verb (kommer) must immediately follow it. Hope that helps!
1459
The letter will come by Friday = Brevet kommer senast på fredag.
(Constructions with från fredag mean from Friday, that is, starting on Friday.)
That's because English is an SVO language, while Swedish is a V2 language. To use less technical terms, in an English sentence, the subject, the verb and the object must appear strictly in this order for it to be grammatical. In Swedish, the verb must always be in the second position. Because of this, these two languages handle starting sentences with something other than subject differently:
- I am angry. -- Now I am angry.
- Jag är arg. -- Nu är jag arg.
1459
What you're saying about Swedish as a V2 language is correct, but we don't say ond very often these days, it sounds very old-fashioned to me – that is, in the sense angry. Nowadays ond most often means evil.
Use arg instead to say angry.
135
Carnaedy - although I already understand the principle you're explaining here, I like the way you explain it and I think your explanation is valuable to this forum. Just wanted to flip a kudo your way... :)
Dear Arnauti you are a great teacher. I am new at the Swedish DL. If only we all knew Greek Grammar and Terminology... that would be a surprise. Same structure. and plus. many words are not connected to German but to Greek. Arg means angry. ORGI means anger in Greek. En stund means just a moment . En stigmi. ! And so on. I just want to help. Eva.
The literal translation is technically proper English. Nowadays, we tend to not start short clauses with adverb phrases (as far as I hear here in Northern California. Idk about the rest of the US). The sentence is more likely to be "The letter is coming on Friday." However, this construction uses a continuous construction in English where an even more literal translation would be "The letter comes on Friday" which doesn't make the most amount of sense because you're referring to something that will happen in the future with a present tense verb.
886
Can I translate this as "On Friday the letter will come" or "The letter will come on Friday" ?
i am very confused with words on, in and at because they all seem to be "pa" in swedish but in english they are 3 different words i guess? i probably don't know english well enough to use these 3 words correctly but can someone explain to me please?