15 Comments
I am still a bit confused by this structure. I would think the food is the subject, but because there is an adjective before the subject, there has to be a formal subject after the verb? Is that correct? Would the adjective take the plural form where there is one?
http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/theswedishteacher/2010/11/08/den-or-det/
I think this helps, but I just want to make sure it's the same idea.
1718
I'm not native but I think the sentence pretty much translates to "There is (to be) found a lot of food here", with "här finns det..." being the equivalent to "there is ... here". It is just a fixed expression to say "there is..." like "il y'a ..." (literally "it has here ...") in French or "es gibt ..." (lit. "it gives ...") in German.
So "mat" wouldn't be the subject, but the object (what is to be found) and "det" would be the subject (at least technically). That's how I understand it.
Knowing that it is a fixed expression makes all the difference. I now see why the adverb comes after det. Thanks for clarifying.
I think "the food is there" then "food" is the subject but in "there is/there are" constructions "there is" is a subject (cuz there isn't one, really, but it's he same as "it is raining") while "food" is either object or predicate nominative... not completely sure in the terminology.
Does the det always have to be there, or could it be Här finns mycket mat or does that sound wrong?
That sounds wrong. Swedish sentences require a subject, and when it's there because of that, it's always det.
Does "det mycket" always mean "a lot of" when they are used together like this?
- 891
No, those words do not form an unit here. The unit is det finns ('there is'), in this case in the order finns det because of the V2 rule. So another possible word order would be Det finns mycket mat här.
Does anyone know if there is a connection between "finns det" and the German "findet sich"? Edit: actually 'finns' itself seems to me like it would be 'findet sich' as in
"Hier findet sich (es) viel Essen" vs. "Har finns det mycket mat "
Why isn't "there is much food" correct? "Here is much food" works, so why can't you use "There"?
- 891
'There is much food' would be Det finns mycket mat so if you translate it that way, you leave out the här that is present in the Swedish sentence.
