Breakdown of Piraten med det stora ärrets kanon är enorm.
vara
to be
stor
big
det
the (with ett-words)
med
with
enorm
enormous
piraten
the pirate
ärret
the scar
kanonen
the cannon
Questions & Answers about Piraten med det stora ärrets kanon är enorm.
Why is the possessive -s attached to ärrets instead of Piraten?
Just like in English, the Swedish possessive -s attaches to the very end of a descriptive noun phrase, not necessarily to the head noun. This is called the phrasal genitive (gruppgenitiv). The whole owner phrase is Piraten med det stora ärret (The pirate with the big scar), so the -s goes on ärret, even though the cannon belongs to the pirate.
Why is kanon in the indefinite form if we are talking about a specific cannon?
In Swedish, whenever a noun is preceded by a possessive word or a genitive -s, it must be in the indefinite form. Because kanon immediately follows the genitive phrase Piraten med det stora ärrets, it drops any definite ending and stays as kanon.
Why do we use det and stora for the scar?
The word for scar, ett ärr, is an ett-word. When making a definite phrase with an adjective, you need the definite article det, the adjective gets the definite -a ending (stora), and the noun gets the definite suffix (ärret).
Could this sentence be misunderstood to mean the scar owns the cannon?
Grammatically, it could! Taken literally out of context, det stora ärrets kanon looks like "the big scar's cannon." However, Swedish speakers use common sense to parse the gruppgenitiv. If you ever worry a sentence is too confusing, you can always rewrite it, for example: Kanonen som tillhör piraten med det stora ärret är enorm (The cannon that belongs to the pirate with the big scar is enormous).
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