some questions about Swedish declension

[Skomakar'n]

de avokadosarna.

I have never heard this. Now that I think of it, I don't think I've really heard this in plural at all, though. It can easily be collective, like fisk, I guess.

My personal intuition would tell me avokadoerna, though.

I say avokadorna, but I've heard avokadosarna.

Wiktionary lists avokadorna and avokadoerna (I can't imagine someone pronouncing the latter though...).

My pronunciation might not make that <e> very laudable, but I'd definitely prefer using it in the spelling.

[*Ceresz]

Really? Well, I guess it's more logical than my use of <sade> even though I always say [sɑː] or spelling "nummer+tio" words as, for instance, <sjutio> and always pronouncing it [ɧɵtɪ].

[Skomakar'n]

Really? Well, I guess it's more logical than my use of <sade> even though I always say [sɑː] or spelling "nummer+tio" words as, for instance, <sjutio> and always pronouncing it [ɧɵtɪ].

Those I always spell <sade> and <sjuttio> even though my pronunciation is along the lines of [ˈsʲɑː] and [ˈʃœtʰiːʏ]. I guess <sjuttio> still makes sense here, though. I consider writing and speech very different things, though.

[Tximist]

It's pretty standard.

To use a classic example, anden and anden have different accents.

That's because one has a root ending in -e, suffixing -n, while the other ends in a consonant and suffixes -en.

[*Ceresz]

It's pretty standard.

To use a classic example, anden and anden have different accents.

That's because one has a root ending in -e, suffixing -n, while the other ends in a consonant and suffixes -en.

Well then, I don't see what's so strange about doing the same thing with 'böner' and 'bönor' if you pronounce them both as 'böner' since it's the same here.

Böna - Bean
Bön - Prayer

[Magb]

It's pretty standard.

To use a classic example, anden and anden have different accents.

That's because one has a root ending in -e, suffixing -n, while the other ends in a consonant and suffixes -en.

Well then, I don't see what's so strange about doing the same thing with 'böner' and 'bönor' if you pronounce them both as 'böner' since it's the same here.

Böna - Bean
Bön - Prayer

As a general rule, Scandinavian words get the grave pitch accent if the word was polysyllabic in Old Norse, and the acute accent if it was monosyllabic. The plural forms of böna and bön in ON were:

"beans": baunur
"prayers": bœnir

In other words both were bisyllabic. Compare with the plural of bonde:

"farmers": bœndr

Those final /r/'s were never syllabic in Old Norse, so bœndr was monosyllabic. That's why normally bönder gets the acute accent while böner and bönor both get the grave accent.

Now, at this point you may wonder why this shouldn't be the case with the definite forms anden and anden as well. In Old Norse they had the following forms:

"duck": ǫnd, "the duck": ǫndin
"spirit": andi, "the spirit": andinn

...where both of the definite forms are clearly bisyllabic. However, as it turns out, the definite article is exempt from the rule about mono- and poly-syllabic words. Instead, definite nouns preserve the pitch accent of their indefinite forms, so "the duck" gets the acute accent because its indefinite form is monosyllabic, while "the spirit" gets the grave accent because its definite form is bisyllabic.

[*Ceresz]

Well, yes, but if you want to it can still work.
Even though it probably would sound pretty weird.

I'm not saying I do that though, since I distinguish between -or and -er in speech.

I'm just gonna shut up now, before I say more stupid stuff .

[Chuma]

You could distinguish between them using tone, it's just that no one does.

probably from what orthographically is written <och> - it's replaced att in many contexts.
Do you pronounce the subjunction "att" that way as well - is "hur visste du att ..." pronounced with [ɔ] ? If so, k, then you're right, otherwise, I bet it's a grammatical change more than a sound change.

I've been taught that it's the other way around - first they are pronounced the same, then "och" replaces "att" because you can't tell them apart. You do make an interesting argument. But saying that the infinite marker has been replaced by "och" would also be a little odd. I some contexts (such as "gå att handla", "go shopping") "och" would now be the standard in writing, and if you pronounced it /ok/ it would sound overly explicit but acceptable. But in most contexts (like "han tycker om att handla", "he likes shopping") even tho the normal pronunciation would be /o/, writing <och> or saying /ok/ would raise eyebrows.

My personal intuition would tell me avokadoerna, though.

That sounds more formal to me. I might say that in situations where "avokadosarna" would sound too silly.

[merijn]

Thanks for answering everybody.
To recap:

1) The -n neuter plural marker is probably a reanalysis of the plural definite article as a plural marker.
2) Many Greek and Latin plurals are reanalyzed as singulars in the colloquial language, other Greek and Latin nouns have native plural marking, and for those speakers who do have Greek and Latin plurals in the neuter gender their definite form ends in -n.
3) there is a lot of insecurity about plurals in -s. In some cases some people use a double plural in -sar. Some people avoid the -s plural all together. In the case of fans the definite plural is fansen, but that is a "special case".
4) -er and -or are in most dialects pronounced the same, but different from -ar
5) den stora is the usual way of using an adjective independently.

Is that all correct?

[Aszev]

Yep, pretty much, although I'm not sure I'd say 'fansen' is a special case, as there are more -sen forms out there. Most words that come to mind seem to be unassimilated ones though, e.g. kidsen, bratsen.

Also I double checked your question no. 1, so I can confirm the -n being the original definite form. Historically this is a limited phenomenon and doesn't occur in most traditional dialects.

[Qwynegold]

Yep, pretty much, although I'm not sure I'd say 'fansen' is a special case, as there are more -sen forms out there. Most words that come to mind seem to be unassimilated ones though, e.g. kidsen, bratsen.

Oh yeah, there's that too.

I would say avokadona btw (avokadon = avocado-PL).

[Echobeats]

Do you pronounce the subjunction "att" that way as well - is "hur visste du att ..." pronounced with [ɔ] ? If so, k, then you're right, otherwise, I bet it's a grammatical change more than a sound change.

Cf. Norwegian, which spells these two words differently: å and at. (Half the time they spell og "and" as <å> as well, but that's incorrect .)

My pronunciation might not make that <e> very laudable, but I'd definitely prefer using it in the spelling.

Laudable?

[Tximist]

My pronunciation might not make that <e> very laudable, but I'd definitely prefer using it in the spelling.

Laudable?

Hehe. He means audible. English ain't easy...

[Echobeats]

My pronunciation might not make that <e> very laudable, but I'd definitely prefer using it in the spelling.

Laudable?

Hehe. He means audible. English ain't easy...

I worked that out – I was just being pernickety I guess.

[Peacekeeper]

I would say avokadona btw (avokadon = avocado-PL).

In more formal context I would probably use that form too, but I usually default to "avocadosarna".

Regarding the Greek and Latin plurals, I do use many of them as real plurals (sg. faktum / pl. fakta; sg. visum / pl. visa). Medium and media I use differently for some reason, with the plural depending on which meaning of the word is used. I use sg. medium / pl. medium for a psychic person; sg. medium / pl. media when discussing physics; and media as a mass noun when referring to mass media.

[Miekko]

I would say avokadona btw (avokadon = avocado-PL).

In more formal context I would probably use that form too, but I usually default to "avocadosarna".

Regarding the Greek and Latin plurals, I do use many of them as real plurals (sg. faktum / pl. fakta; sg. visum / pl. visa). Medium and media I use differently for some reason, with the plural depending on which meaning of the word is used. I use sg. medium / pl. medium for a psychic person; sg. medium / pl. media when discussing physics; and media as a mass noun when referring to mass media.

I would never use any other form than avokadona when speaking anything but dialect (in which they may turn up as avokadonen)

otoh, I do use forms like "melondren" (less often "melonan"), citrondren(/citronan), metodren (metodan), etc.

[merijn]

For anyone who was curious whether or not I got the job, today I found a letter of the University of Stockholm in my letterbox that said I won't be offered the job.

[Skomakar'n]

My pronunciation might not make that <e> very laudable, but I'd definitely prefer using it in the spelling.

Laudable?

Hehe. He means audible. English ain't easy...

I worked that out – I was just being pernickety I guess.

Oops. Thanks.