Nouns: Genitive

Here are Lina and Leon. They each brought a thing. They own these things. Let's hear what that sounds like: Lina. Linas bok.

Leon. Leons cykel. The book and the bicycle also have stuff that belongs to them. Then it sounds like this: Bokens omslag. Cykelns styre.

When a person owns, or possesses, something, how do you express that in Swedish? Easy-peasy! You add an S at the end! When we talk about ownership when studying a language, we say genitive. In Swedish, we add a genitive s at the end to indicate possession.

What? Is it really this simple? Well, there are a few special cases and exceptions that are good to know. Read this sentence to yourself: It can mean three different things. Can you tell which?

A person named Hans had a bicycle, and it got stolen. Someone has a bicycle, and his bicycle got stolen. Or, it's Han Solo from Star Wars we are talking about. If he has a bike... The reason that this is tricky, is that when a name ends with an s-sound, we don't add any genitive s in Swedish.

Like this: Kalix största sjö. Schweiz längsta man. Hans stulna cykel. These are three names ending in something that sounds like an s. And then we don't add an additional s.

Most of the time this is fine, but sometimes there's a risk of a misunderstanding. If needed, we can add this little character, an apostrophe. An apostrophe in Swedish means that we have skipped, we have left out, one or more characters. In earlier times, we always used an apostrophe to indicate ownership when names ended with an s-sound in Swedish. But today it is no longer as common to do that.

Try for yourself: can you spot the difference in meaning between these two sentences? Something else that can be tricky with genitive is when the thing that owns something consists of several words. Like these things: Mannen på taket Flicka med pärlörhänge Länsstyrelsen i Södermanlands län If each of these were to get a bicycle each, where would you place the genitive s? Either like this. Or like this.

Both work. The first alternative was previously the only one accepted as proper Swedish. It helps to avoid misunderstanding. It could be that the bicycle belongs to that roof, ear-ring, or county, and not at all to the man, the girl, or the Administrative County Board! But, for many people this alternative sounds more natural, and in spoken Swedish it can normally be used without misunderstanding.

In written Swedish it's sometimes wise to rephrase the text. Like this for example. Let's look at one more! Abbreviations and acronyms. How would you state the genitive of these?

SJ FN SAS Well, this is how you write it: with a colon. Abbreviation - colon - genitive s. Except if the abbreviation ends with an s. Then you do the same as with names ending in s -- nothing. Genitive is one of the things in Swedish grammar that isn't that complicated.

There are a few more exceptions, which can be interesting to understand. Look up, and learn more about these expressions! If you learn these, you'll know more than most people about genitive in Swedish! Till havs - att vara ute på havet är som att tillhöra havet Malmö stad -- inte Malmös stad, men däremot Stockholms stad. Gatukorsning - gatans korsning I mannaminne - något som finns i människors minne Orfei drängar - de drängar som tillhör Orfeus.