De romerska imperierna förlorade alla sina territorier.
The Roman empires lost all their territories.
Breakdown of De romerska imperierna förlorade alla sina territorier.
sin
his/her/its/their own (en-word)
de
the (plural, before adjective)
förlora
to lose
all
all (singular en-words)
romersk
Roman
imperiet
the empire
territoriet
the territory
Questions & Answers about De romerska imperierna förlorade alla sina territorier.
How do we get the plural forms imperierna and territorier from their base words?
Both of these are Latin-derived neuter words that end in -um in the singular: ett imperium, ett territorium. To form the plural, they drop the -um and add -er, making imperier and territorier. To make it definite, we take the plural imperier and add the standard definite ending -na, resulting in imperierna.
Why do we use De at the start of the sentence if imperierna already means 'the empires'?
This is a reminder of Swedish 'double definiteness'. Whenever you put an adjective (like romerska) in front of a definite noun (imperierna), you must also include the standalone definite article before the adjective. Since the noun is plural, that article is De.
Why does the sentence use sina instead of deras for 'their'?
Because the territories belong to the subject of the sentence (the Roman empires). Sin / sitt / sina is the reflexive possessive pronoun, meaning 'their own' in this case. If you used deras, it would mean the Roman empires lost some other group's territories. We use the plural form sina because the noun it describes, territorier, is plural.
Why does the adjective romerska end in an -a?
Adjectives in Swedish get an -a added to the end whenever they describe a plural noun. Because it is describing the plural noun imperierna, the base word romersk becomes romerska.
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