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Grannen planterar sin häck längs uppfarten.

Grannen planterar sin häck längs uppfarten.
The neighbor plants his hedge along the driveway.
From Lesson 272:Subject-bound possessives (sin, sitt, sina)·Swedish

Questions & Answers about Grannen planterar sin häck längs uppfarten.

Why do we use sin here instead of hans?
Sin is a reflexive possessive, meaning it refers back to the subject of the sentence. Since grannen (the neighbor) is the subject doing the planting, and it is his own hedge, we must use sin. If we used hans, it would mean the neighbor is planting another man's hedge.
Why is the word sin used rather than sitt or sina?
Reflexive possessives must match the gender and number of the noun being owned (the object), not the owner. Because häck is a singular en-word (en häck), we use sin. If the neighbor were planting a tree (an ett-word), it would be sitt träd, and for multiple hedges, sina häckar.
Why doesn't häck have a definite ending like uppfarten does?
In Swedish, a noun that comes directly after a possessive word (like sin, min, or hans) must stay in the bare, indefinite form. So it is just sin häck, not sin häcken, even though we are talking about a specific hedge.
Could I say längs med uppfarten instead of just längs uppfarten?
Yes! Both längs and längs med mean "along" and are often used interchangeably. Adding med is very common in everyday spoken Swedish, but längs on its own works perfectly well here.

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