Breakdown of Mannen med den bakkammade frisyren ändrade benan.
mannen
the man
den
the (with en-words)
med
with
ändra
to change (alter, modify)
frisyren
the hairstyle
benan
the parting
bakkammad
combed back
Questions & Answers about Mannen med den bakkammade frisyren ändrade benan.
Why is it bakkammade as one word instead of kammade bak?
The root here is the phrasal verb kamma bak (to comb back). When you turn a phrasal verb into an adjective (a past participle like "combed-back"), Swedish requires you to stick the particle (bak) onto the front of the verb as a prefix. So, it becomes bakkammad.
Why does bakkammade end in "-e" instead of "-a"?
When a past participle adjective ends in -ad (like bakkammad), it always takes the ending -ade in both the plural and the definite form. It does not take the standard -a ending you see on regular adjectives.
Why do we need den if frisyren already means "the hairstyle"?
This is a great reminder of the Swedish double definite rule! Whenever you put an adjective (bakkammade) in front of a definite noun (frisyren), you must also include the standalone definite article (den).
Wait, ändrade looks like a past participle adjective too. Is it an adjective here?
No, here ändrade is just the simple past tense of the verb ändra (to change). Regular verbs in Group 1 end in -ade in the past tense, which happens to look exactly like the plural/definite form of a past participle. Its position after the subject tells you it is the main action of the sentence.
Is benan related to the word for "legs"?
They look very similar but come from different root words. Benan is the definite singular form of en bena, which means a hair parting. The word for "the legs" would be benen, coming from the ett-word ett ben.
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