Breakdown of Flickan väger sin stora hund.
hunden
the dog
stor
big
flickan
the girl
sin
his/her/its/their own (en-word)
Questions & Answers about Flickan väger sin stora hund.
Why does the sentence use sin instead of hennes for "her"?
Sin is a reflexive possessive pronoun used when the subject of the sentence owns the object. Because the girl (the subject) is weighing her own dog, we use sin. If the sentence used hennes, it would mean she is weighing some other female's dog.
Why is the adjective stora with an -a at the end if there is only one dog?
Possessive words like sin (as well as min, din, etc.) force the adjective that follows into its definite form, which usually ends in -a. So even though it is a single dog, the basic form stor must become stora.
Since we use the definite adjective stora, why is the noun hund indefinite instead of hunden?
In Swedish, a possessive pronoun like sin "claims" the noun, so you don't add the definite ending to the noun itself. You must use the definite adjective, but the noun stays indefinite: sin stora hund (never sin stora hunden).
This lesson is about adjectives like stor changing to större. Why doesn't the vowel change to ö in stora?