Swedish verb musings

[Qwynegold]

Just for my own amusement, I started thinking about how many Swedish verbs that don't end with -a in the lemma form I could think of. Some of these verbs are only used reflexively, so they require the pronoun sig, some require the preposition på or för, and then there's one that's always reflexive and passive.

be - pray; be om - ask for, archaic form bedja exists
bero - depend on
bli - become, an archaic form bliva exists
bo - live (at a place)
bre - spread (eg. condiments on a slice of bread), a longer form breda also exists
brå(s på) - be similar to a relative, because of inherited looks or traits
dö - die
fly - flee
flå - flay
få - get, receive
ge - give, archaic form giva is completely dead, except as a part of some derived words
glo - stare (slang)
gno - toil
gny - whimper
gro - germinate
gry - dawn
gå - walk
klå - beat someone (figuratively), klå upp - beat someone (literally), this word with either meaning feels a little slangy to me
klä - clothe; (clothes) suit someone, a longer form kläda exists, including a reflexive ikläda sig
knö - cram (Gothenburg dialect)
le - smile
må - feel (eg. well or bad)
nå - reach (be tall enough to reach smth)
ro - row
ro - to rest (archaic and dead)
rå (för) - be responsible for smth, help a situation, have control over smth, rå på - have a person under one's control, a longer form råda also exists
se - see
ske - happen
sko (sig) - put on shoes; get fortunate on someone else's expense
slå - hit
sno - steal (slang); twist (a string)
spy - vomit; spew
spå - foretell
spä - dilute (a substance), increase (disagreement, hatred, etc.), a longer form späda also exists
strö - sprinkle
stå - stand
sy - sew
så - sow
te (sig) - seem
tro - believe
trä - put something through a string or other oblong object, a longer from träda also exists
trö - push (dialectal)
ty (sig) - turn to someone for nurture or comforting

Can anyone come up with more of these verb? I don't know if I should count dialectal forms. If there's a lot of those, then this list would become meaningless.

And can anyone tell why there are so few of these verbs? Some of these verbs originally did end with -a, so I made mentions of that because it might be interesting.

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

You seem to have missed "spy".

[Particles the Greek]

Is "ha", "to have", also Swedish?

[Shrdlu]

I wouldn't say gry thought, but gryning And sko sig can also mean, atleast for me to get fortunate on the expense on someone else.

Is "ha", "to have", also Swedish?

Yeah it is.

[Miekko]

bre - spread (eg. condiments on a slice of bread)

There's the form breda to account for this one, still the form preferred in more formal language.

klä - clothe; (clothes) suit someone

kläda

strö - sprinkle

ströa is common enough in some spoken varieties to be worth mentioning (if gothenburg-specific verbs also are mentioned)
(imd the infinitive is ti ströj)

stå - stand

IMD, exceptionally, that one ends in -a - sta:

trä - put something through a string or other oblong object

IMD, at least, the infinitive is ti träd, and since my dialect does a very consistent deletion of final /a/ in verbs, that's at least indicative of something I guess.

Can anyone come up with more of these verb? I don't know if I should count dialectal forms. If there's a lot of those, then this list would become meaningless.

Most northern dialects delete the -a entirely, so you get things like "ti väx", "ti vänt", "ti råd", "ti väg", thus basically generating hundreds of them.

And can anyone tell why there are so few of these verbs? Some of these verbs originally did end with -a, so I made mentions of that because it might be interesting.

A question I immediately associate with this is imperatives that retain -a even when morphophonologically similar verbs omit it - c.f.

bita - bit
rita - rita

What causes this, is there any verb-pair where the infinitive is homophonous but the imperative differs on this?

[Valdeut]

I think we can divide these verbs into different classes based on the infinitive stem in Old Swedish:

• 1a. Verbs with a stem that ended in a voiced fricative ([v], [ð], [ɣ]) in Old Swedish, possibly followed by /j/. The shorter form are typically used even in formal writing today but the longer forms were often used in formal writing well into the 20th century.
  bedja > be; bliva > bli; breda > bre; draga > dra; giva > ge; hava > ha; kläda > klä; måga > må; råda > rå; späda > spä; träda > trä; taga > ta; tyda > ty (the [ð] was lost very early on, the class 2a verb tya is also found in Old Swedish)
• 1b. Verbs that used to have an intervocalic /j/ in the infinitive-stem. For the most part, the longer forms did not survive past Old Swedish.
  döja > dö; *gryja > gry (I don't think *gryja is actually attested in Old Swedish); leja > le; spyja > spy; ströja > strö; syja > sy
• 1c. Verbs with a stem that ended (and often still end) in /r/. The shorter forms are very informal.
  göra > gö; vara > va

• 2aI. Verbs with vowel-final stems in Old Swedish, where the infinitive ending (usually) did not fuse with the stem vowel. The fused forms may have been found already in later Old Swedish, especially for common verbs. And apparently, the forms with an unfused infinitive ending are still found in some dialects.
  boa > bo; gloa > glo; gnoa > gno; groa > gro; roa > ro; sea > se; skoa > sko; snoa > sno; tea > te, troa > tro
• 2aII. Medieval loans into class 2a, that are not attested without the infinitive ending fused into the stem:
  ske (from Low German)
• 2b. Verbs with a stem that ended in long /aː/ in Old Swedish, were the infinitive ending fused with the stem vowel very early on (in some cases, already in Proto-Germanic). Due to a sound change in Late Old Swedish, these end in å in Modern Swedish.
  brå, få, gå, klå, nå, spå, stå, så

The verbs gå and stå used to have longer forms gånga and stånda (the vowel quality is in analogy with the shorter form, these had a short /a/ in Early Old Swedish) but the shorter forms are not the result consonant loss. The longer forms must have existed side-by-side with the shorter already in Proto-Germanic (but only in the present, in the past only one formation was found).

Can anyone come up with more of these verb?

draga > dra; taga > ta;

Some of these verbs originally did end with -a, so I made mentions of that because it might be interesting.

Yes, in Early Old Swedish, basically all of them did except for the ones that had a stem ending in long a (class 2b above).

[Valdeut]

All weak verbs of the first conjugation (kalla, kallade, kallat) can also be said to lack the infinitive –a. The infinitive does of course end in –a, but the –a should probably be considered part of the stem.

A question I immediately associate with this is imperatives that retain -a even when morphophonologically similar verbs omit it - c.f.

bita - bit
rita - rita

What causes this

The imperative is always the bare stem of the infinitive without the ending –a. When the infinitive stem ends in a vowel, the infinitive ending –a is often dropped causing the imperative and and infinitive to become homophonous. Now, keep in mind what I said above about the first conjugation. They do end in a in the imperative but it's not a retention of the infinitive ending, the a is really part of the stem. Note that these verbs also keep the a in the past and the supine: rita, ritade, ritat; kalla, kallade, kallat.

Compare other consonant-final weak verbs where the infinitive and imperative are differentiated:
glömma, glömde, glömt (imperative: glöm!)

...and vowel-final weak verbs where they are not:
gro (< groa), grodde, grott (imperative: gro!)

is there any verb-pair where the infinitive is homophonous but the imperative differs on this?

There is spinna ('to spin, to make yarn') and spinna ('to do spinning, i.e. indoor cycling'). The first is conjugated as a strong verb: spinna, spann, spunnit (imperative spinn!). The second is often (but not always) conjugated as a weak verb of the first conjugation (as loan words typically are): spinna, spannade, spinnat (imperative: spinna!).

There are probably more examples since it's not that uncommon for different senses of a verb to follow a different conjugation. If one sense follow the first conjugation, it will retain the a in the imperative while others will not.

[Qwynegold]

You seem to have missed "spy".

Ah, I did!

[Qwynegold]

I wouldn't say gry thought, but gryning

Gryning is a noun. Gry is the verb, as in "en ny dag gryr".

And sko sig can also mean, atleast for me to get fortunate on the expense on someone else.

Yeah, I left it out because it's a figure of speech, and doesn't grammatically differ from the literal meaning. But maybe I should include it because I think the figurative meaning is much more common.

[Qwynegold]

I think we can divide these verbs into different classes based on the infinitive stem in Old Swedish:

• 1a. Verbs with a stem that ended in a voiced fricative ([v], [ð], [ɣ]) in Old Swedish, possibly followed by /j/. The shorter form are typically used even in formal writing today but the longer forms were often used in formal writing well into the 20th century.
  bedja > be; bliva > bli; breda > bre; draga > dra; giva > ge; hava > ha; kläda > klä; måga > må; råda > rå; späda > spä; träda > trä; taga > ta; tyda > ty (the [ð] was lost very early on, the class 2a verb tya is also found in Old Swedish)
• 1b. Verbs that used to have an intervocalic /j/ in the infinitive-stem. For the most part, the longer forms did not survive past Old Swedish.
  döja > dö; *gryja > gry (I don't think *gryja is actually attested in Old Swedish); leja > le; spyja > spy; ströja > strö; syja > sy
• 1c. Verbs with a stem that ended (and often still end) in /r/. The shorter forms are very informal.
  göra > gö; vara > va

• 2aI. Verbs with vowel-final stems in Old Swedish, where the infinitive ending (usually) did not fuse with the stem vowel. The fused forms may have been found already in later Old Swedish, especially for common verbs. And apparently, the forms with an unfused infinitive ending are still found in some dialects.
  boa > bo; gloa > glo; gnoa > gno; groa > gro; roa > ro; sea > se; skoa > sko; snoa > sno; tea > te, troa > tro
• 2aII. Medieval loans into class 2a, that are not attested without the infinitive ending fused into the stem:
  ske (from Low German)
• 2b. Verbs with a stem that ended in long /aː/ in Old Swedish, were the infinitive ending fused with the stem vowel very early on (in some cases, already in Proto-Germanic). Due to a sound change in Late Old Swedish, these end in å in Modern Swedish.
  brå, få, gå, klå, nå, spå, stå, så

The verbs gå and stå used to have longer forms gånga and stånda (the vowel quality is in analogy with the shorter form, these had a short /a/ in Early Old Swedish) but the shorter forms are not the result consonant loss. The longer forms must have existed side-by-side with the shorter already in Proto-Germanic (but only in the present, in the past only one formation was found).

Oh! Thank you! The last group of those verbs, did their infinitive form use to be /bra:/, /fa:/, etc?

Can anyone come up with more of these verb?

draga > dra; taga > ta;

But they end in -a!

Btw, how come we haven't had vädja vä?

[Chuma]

Is "ha", "to have", also Swedish?

And that also ends in -a.

However,
flå
gny
bero
trö (dialectal version of trycka)
fly

[Valdeut]

[*] 2b. Verbs with a stem that ended in long /aː/ in Old Swedish, were the infinitive ending fused with the stem vowel very early on (in some cases, already in Proto-Germanic). Due to a sound change in Late Old Swedish, these end in å in Modern Swedish.
brå, få, gå, klå, nå, spå, stå, så[/list]

The verbs gå and stå used to have longer forms gånga and stånda (the vowel quality is in analogy with the shorter form, these had a short /a/ in Early Old Swedish) but the shorter forms are not the result consonant loss. The longer forms must have existed side-by-side with the shorter already in Proto-Germanic (but only in the present, in the past only one formation was found).

Oh! Thank you! The last group of those verbs, did their infinitive form use to be /bra:/, /fa:/, etc?

Yes.

Can anyone come up with more of these verb?

draga > dra; taga > ta;

But they end in -a!

Well that's true, orthographically they do end in ‹a›. But the ‹a› is pronounced differently from the common infinitive ending, it's a long /ɑː/ as opposed to a short unstressed /a/. Also, it's kept in the imperative and present indicative, so it's clearly part of the stem.

Btw, how come we haven't had vädja vä?

It seems like most verbs that could potentially have been shortended according to the 1a-pattern do not in fact have short forms in the standard language. There are for example frida/freda, glöda, gräva, skava, skrida, svedja, sveda, svida, suga, såga. SAOB don't give any evidence of a short form ever having existed for these verbs. But I would guess that more short forms once existed in common speech (while the long forms were still used in careful or formal speech and in writing), and they might still exist in dialects. Sometime or somewhere, vädja vä probably did exist. But the short forms that stuck where a few common words.

I found a few short forms in SAOB (there's probably more) that did not make their way into the standard language:
föda fö
leda le
reda re
rida *ri (actually, only the present rir is listed in SAOB)
stödja stö

As for knö (or rather knô), I believe it's from knoga so it also fits this pattern.

[Chuma]

As for knö (or rather knô)

Both knö and trö I've also heard in southern Swedish, where you wouldn't distinguish "ô", though.

spinna, spannade, spinnat (imperative: spinna!).

Can't say I've ever heard this conjugated. A quick poll among friends shows mild scepticism towards spinna as imperative. But it's hard to say for those recent imports (cf. taxi).

Another suggestion: kröka. First meaning "bend, make crooked" (I assume cognate with "crook"), second meaning "drink alcohol, get drunk" (metaphor from the first meaning?) The first is krök in imperative, and I'm inclined to say the second would be kröka.

It seems that bero is so far the only one with two syllables - or did I miss any? We can add be- to a few others: begå, bestå, betro, beslå, bese, bebo, beklä... There are also some other German-inspired prefixes we can add: anslå, förbli, anförtro, for example.

[Chuma]

...and an even better example of homophones: sticka. In the sense "poke, pierce" (and the slang sense "get out, go away") it loses the -a in imperative, but in the sense "knit" it doesn't.

[Qwynegold]

The last group of those verbs, did their infinitive form use to be /bra:/, /fa:/, etc?

Yes.

Ah.

Can anyone come up with more of these verb?

draga > dra; taga > ta;

But they end in -a!

Well that's true, orthographically they do end in ‹a›. But the ‹a› is pronounced differently from the common infinitive ending, it's a long /ɑː/ as opposed to a short unstressed /a/. Also, it's kept in the imperative and present indicative, so it's clearly part of the stem.

Hmm, in a morphological perspective I guess they are different. But I disagree on phonological grounds. These verbs are all monosyllabic, so there is no phonemic distinction between [a] and [ɑː].

Btw, how come we haven't had vädja vä?

It seems like most verbs that could potentially have been shortended according to the 1a-pattern do not in fact have short forms in the standard language. There are for example frida/freda, glöda, gräva, skava, skrida, svedja, sveda, svida, suga, såga. SAOB don't give any evidence of a short form ever having existed for these verbs. But I would guess that more short forms once existed in common speech (while the long forms were still used in careful or formal speech and in writing), and they might still exist in dialects. Sometime or somewhere, vädja vä probably did exist. But the short forms that stuck where a few common words.

I found a few short forms in SAOB (there's probably more) that did not make their way into the standard language:
föda fö
leda le
reda re
rida *ri (actually, only the present rir is listed in SAOB)
stödja stö

As for knö (or rather knô), I believe it's from knoga so it also fits this pattern.

Aha, interesting.

[Qwynegold]

It seems that bero is so far the only one with two syllables - or did I miss any? We can add be- to a few others: begå, bestå, betro, beslå, bese, bebo, beklä... There are also some other German-inspired prefixes we can add: anslå, förbli, anförtro, for example.

Oh. These prefixes would inflate the list, so I think I'll skip them. Except for bero because it's unrelated to ro.

Oh, and this relates to another thought I had that I'm gonna make a thread about, but I'll do that later... Look forward to Swedish verb musings 2.

[Magb]

It seems like most verbs that could potentially have been shortended according to the 1a-pattern do not in fact have short forms in the standard language. There are for example frida/freda, glöda, gräva, skava, skrida, svedja, sveda, svida, suga, såga. SAOB don't give any evidence of a short form ever having existed for these verbs. But I would guess that more short forms once existed in common speech (while the long forms were still used in careful or formal speech and in writing), and they might still exist in dialects. Sometime or somewhere, vädja vä probably did exist. But the short forms that stuck where a few common words.

I found a few short forms in SAOB (there's probably more) that did not make their way into the standard language:
föda fö
leda le
reda re
rida *ri (actually, only the present rir is listed in SAOB)
stödja stö

As for knö (or rather knô), I believe it's from knoga so it also fits this pattern.

If I may offer a Norwegian perspective, we have at least ríða > ri, reiða > re, svíða > svi, skríða > skri, glœða > glø, stœða > stø, fœða > fø, knoða > kna, súga > su. Some of those are standard and others less so, and it certainly depends on your dialect. In some cases there's both a shortened version and a regular version with different meanings, e.g. føde = give birth and fø = feed (trans.).

[Pole, the]

In some cases there's both a shortened version and a regular version with different meanings, e.g. føde = give birth and fø = feed (trans.).

How are these inflected?

[Magb]

IMD, and in bokmål (inf/pres/past/perf):
fø - før - fødde - fødd
føde - føder - fødte - født

In nynorsk both have fødde in the past tense. Most of the other shortened verbs are inflected similarly to fø.

[Valdeut]

Oh. These prefixes would inflate the list, so I think I'll skip them. Except for bero because it's unrelated to ro.

It's not related to ro meaning 'to row', but it is indirectly related to roa. There is actually an older form of this verb, ro (conjugated the same way as ro 'to row') that you could add to your list.

Bero is obviously borrowed from Low German whereas roa is from Old Norse, but they are cognates.

If I may offer a Norwegian perspective, we have at least ríða > ri, reiða > re, svíða > svi, skríða > skri, glœða > glø, stœða > stø, fœða > fø, knoða > kna, súga > su. Some of those are standard and others less so, and it certainly depends on your dialect. In some cases there's both a shortened version and a regular version with different meanings, e.g. føde = give birth and fø = feed (trans.).

That's very interesting. Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB) does not give short forms for svida, skrida, glöda, knåda or suga but the Norwegian examples make me think that such forms probably existed or still exist in some Swedish dialects.

Apart from ON hafa ha, are there any Norwegian examples of verbs with Old Norse [v] (/f/) shortening in this way? Because ha is the only Swedish example I can think of, all the others are verbs with [ð] or [ɣ].

Oh. These prefixes would inflate the list, so I think I'll skip them. Except for bero because it's unrelated to ro.

It's not related to ro meaning 'to row', but it is indirectly related to roa. There is actually an older form of this verb, ro (conjugated the same way as ro 'to row') that you could add to your list.

Bero is obviously borrowed from Low German whereas roa is from Old Norse, but they are cognates.

Hmm, in a morphological perspective I guess they are different. But I disagree on phonological grounds. These verbs are all monosyllabic, so there is no phonemic distinction between [a] and [ɑː].

That's true of course, but /a/ and /ɑː/ are still different phonemes as they contrast in other environments (it's just that /a/ can't occur here). But it's your list so you're free to set the criteria as you please!

[Qwynegold]

Oh. These prefixes would inflate the list, so I think I'll skip them. Except for bero because it's unrelated to ro.

It's not related to ro meaning 'to row', but it is indirectly related to roa. There is actually an older form of this verb, ro (conjugated the same way as ro 'to row') that you could add to your list.

Bero is obviously borrowed from Low German whereas roa is from Old Norse, but they are cognates.

What was the exact meaning of this archaic ro again?

Hmm, in a morphological perspective I guess they are different. But I disagree on phonological grounds. These verbs are all monosyllabic, so there is no phonemic distinction between [a] and [ɑː].

That's true of course, but /a/ and /ɑː/ are still different phonemes as they contrast in other environments (it's just that /a/ can't occur here). But it's your list so you're free to set the criteria as you please!

[Valdeut]

What was the exact meaning of this archaic ro again?

It's an old form of modern roa 'to entertain', but the original meaning was actually 'to rest'. It's the same semantic shift as rolig 'calm' 'funny'.

[Qwynegold]

What was the exact meaning of this archaic ro again?

It's an old form of modern roa 'to entertain', but the original meaning was actually 'to rest'. It's the same semantic shift as rolig 'calm' 'funny'.

Ah, okay! Added it.

[Shrdlu]

I came up with an other one, nyck, thought I only ever used the plural nycker. One translation I found is "ideas" thought it doesn't quite capture the word because it means more like "one who constantly gets strange ideas and the need to do them" with a positive or negative interpretation depending on context. Just calling nyck/er "idea/s" doesn't suffice.

[Miekko]

I came up with an other one, nyck, thought I only ever used the plural nycker. One translation I found is "ideas" thought it doesn't quite capture the word because it means more like "one who constantly gets strange ideas and the need to do them" with a positive or negative interpretation depending on context. Just calling nyck/er "idea/s" doesn't suffice.

The general use it has gets pretty close to something like compulsion, impulse.