Breakdown of Ju fler varor konsumenten köper, dess mindre blir överskottet.
köpa
to buy
bli
to become
ju
as you know / of course
fler
more (countable)
mindre
less / smaller
varan
the good
konsumenten
the consumer
dess
the (in proportional comparisons)
överskottet
the surplus
Questions & Answers about Ju fler varor konsumenten köper, dess mindre blir överskottet.
I've learned "ju... desto", but here it says "dess". Is dess the same as desto?
Yes! In this "the... the..." construction, the second part can start with either desto or dess. So dess mindre and desto mindre mean exactly the same thing ("the smaller"). desto is a bit more common in everyday speech, but both are perfectly correct.
Why is the verb blir placed before the subject överskottet in the second half of the sentence?
The second half of a ju... desto/dess... sentence is a main clause, which means it must follow the V2 rule (the verb must be in the second position). The comparative phrase dess mindre takes up the entire first position, so the verb blir has to come next, pushing the subject överskottet to the third position.
But in the first half of the sentence, the subject (konsumenten) comes before the verb (köper). Why doesn't it use the V2 rule?
The ju part of the sentence acts as a subordinate clause. Subordinate clauses do not use the V2 rule; instead, the subject comes directly before the verb. So we get Ju fler varor (The more goods) + konsumenten (the consumer) + köper (buys).
Why does the sentence use fler for "more" instead of mer?
Because varor (goods) is a plural, countable noun. In Swedish, you use fler (more) for things you can count (one item, two items), whereas mer (more) is used for uncountable amounts, like water, money, or time.
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