"Whose book is it?"
Translation:Vems bok är det?
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Why is "Vems bok är den?" not correct? "Bok" takes the "en" article, right? So why "det" and not "den"?
det is not an article of the book here, it is just a placeholder pronoun. We often compare it to it in it is raining. Just like we say Det är min bok 'It is my book', not den, we would only use det here.
For a much longer explanation, see this post: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/9708920
You only use that form if it directly affects the noun. Det är boken, not den är boken BUT Den boken är grå
Why isnt the verb in second place? Is it because of the emphasis on book? (Ie. Whose -book- is this vs whose is this book)
I tried 'Vems är boken?' but this wasn't an acceptable answer. Any idea why?
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As you can read above: Arnauti said that would be like "whose is the book?" instead of "whose book is it?". We should translate the later sentence => vems bok är det?
I am confused why "Do you know whose dog is it?" is translated as "Vet du vems hund det är?" and "Whose book is it?" is "Vems bok är det?". Why do det and är get switched? I keep getting the answer wrong because I don't understand the rule for the order here.
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As I guess you figured it out by yourself within the period of time that elapsed until today, I can only tell that it sounds very German to me. Hence, I would state that the “Vet du” is a disposable particle placed in front of the actual sentence, which functions in accordance to the regular SVO structure. The aforementioned particle is not necessary in order to construct a complete sentence, hence the different positions of “är” in both sentences.
That’s a quite awkward Swedish sentence and doesn’t correspond to the English one as well as Vems bok är det.
The "inversions" presented in the notes have been very helpful to me in understanding question structure (I take a statement and then "invert" or switch the noun and verb to transform it into a question), but I can't seem to transform this question into a statement to work backwards. Can someone help?
Actually talking about inversion may not be that helpful. The rule for main clauses is that the verb is in second place. While in most cases the subject is first, it doesn't have to be and there's no rule about it. But the rule about having the verb second is very firm.
For questions, the rule is that the verb goes before the subject (and you can only have question words etc first).
The reason this one is hard to rewrite is probably 'vems'. It's a question word, so we wouldn't use it in a statement.
With possessive pronouns, it would be like this:
Det är din bok. 'It is your book.'
Är det din bok? 'Is it your book?'
I get very confused as to when I should or shouldn't drop words like "is" and "are." In this case, why do I need är? Why not "Vems bok det?"
It's used for "whose", but in relative clauses.
- Whose book is it? = Vems bok är det?
- Do you know whose book it is? = Vet du vems bok det är?
- The author, whose book... = Författaren, vars bok...
Also, it's a common northern dialectal word for both var and vart. :)
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All Germanic languages follow a strict SVO order with little opportunity for variation outside of the common phrase patterns, that are imperative sentences, interrogative sentences and those simple utterances as shown here. Such variances as you asked would be more likely to be found in Slavic languages.
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