Breakdown of Företagaren vill driva sin egen firma.
vilja
to want to
sin
his/her/its/their own (en-word)
företagaren
the entrepreneur
driva
to run (a business)
egen
own
firman
the firm
Questions & Answers about Företagaren vill driva sin egen firma.
Wait, why is it egen here? I thought adjectives after possessive pronouns like sin always take the definite form ending in -a.
You are right about the general rule, but egen is a major exception! Unlike other adjectives, egen takes the indefinite form after possessive pronouns. Since firma is an en-word, we use egen. If we used a regular adjective here, it would get the -a ending: sin nya firma (his new firm).
How would this sentence change if the entrepreneur wanted to run their own company (företag - an ett-word)?
Because egen still has to match the gender of the noun it describes, you would use the ett-word form eget. The sentence would become: Företagaren vill driva sitt eget företag. Notice that sin also changes to sitt to match the ett-word!
Why use sin instead of hans (his) or hennes (her)?
Sin is a reflexive possessive pronoun, meaning it points back to the subject of the same clause. If we said Företagaren vill driva hans firma, it would mean the entrepreneur wants to run someone else's firm. We use sin to show they want to run their own firm.
Why is the verb driva in the infinitive form, instead of the present tense driver?
It is in the infinitive because it comes directly after the modal verb vill (wants to). In Swedish, the main verb following a modal verb stays in its infinitive form without using att (to) before it.
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