Swedish Grammar | Substantives

= grammatical gender

i Assignment to gender follows no fixed rule

i Rule of thumb: use of utrum if noun is a person, an occupation or an animal

i Approximately 75% of all nouns are utrums

Gender	Indefinite Article	Example
Utrum	en	en björn
Neuter	ett	ett brev

= biological gender

Rule	Masculine	Feminine
usually no distinction is made between genders	en dansare	en dansare
however, the word 'kvinnlig' can be placed before the noun	en dansare	en kvinnlig dansare
Exceptions exist where a distinction is made between genders	en skådespelare	en skådespelerska

Formation depends on whether the noun is in indefinite or definite form
Therefore, the formation of a word into singular or plural is seen in the formation of the articles.

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= Gendered Word

			indefinite		definite
Group	Usage	genders	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1	unstressed -a ending	Utrum	en lampa	lampor	lampan	lamporna
2	monosyllabic	Utrum	en älg	älgar	älgen	älgarna
2	-dom, -e, -el, -en, -er, -ing, -lek, -ning Endung	Utrum	en pojke	pojkar	pojken	poijkarna
3	consonant ending	Utrum/Neuter	en bild	bilder	bilden	bilderna
	last syllable stressed		en minut	minuter	minuten	minuterna
	stem vowel umlauts (e.g., o becomes ö)		en bok	böcker	böcken	böckerna
4	vowel ending	Neuter	ett äpple	äpplen	äpplet	äpplena
5	consonant ending	Utrum/Neuter	ett hus	hus	huset	husen
5	-are, -iker, -ier ending	Utrum/Neuter	en lekledare	lekledare	lekledaren	lekledarna
6	irregular	Utrum/Neuter	en man	män	mannen	männen
	no plural and no indefinite singular		-	-	kaffe	-
	no singular and no indefinite plural		-	-	-	ferier

i Nominative and accusative correspond to the base form of the noun in swedish

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