Breakdown of Fången lyckades fly till skogs i mörkret.
i
in
lyckas
to succeed
mörkret
the darkness
fly
to flee
fången
the prisoner
till skogs
into the woods
Questions & Answers about Fången lyckades fly till skogs i mörkret.
Why is it skogs with an -s instead of just skog after till?
This is a fossilized genitive form, which is exactly what this lesson is about. Historically, the preposition till required the following noun to be in the genitive case (ending in -s). While modern Swedish no longer uses cases this way, fixed expressions relating to locations or environments like till skogs (to the woods), till havs (to sea), and till bords (to the table) have kept the old ending.
Why isn't there an att before fly (i.e., lyckades att fly)?
The verb lyckas (to succeed or manage to do something) is often followed directly by an infinitive without the infinitive marker att. While you can grammatically say lyckades att fly, dropping the att is completely standard and very common in modern Swedish.
Lyckades ends in an -s. Does that make it a passive verb?
No, lyckas is a deponent verb. This means it always ends in -s in all tenses and looks like a passive verb, but it actually has an active meaning. You have likely seen this before with verbs like hoppas (to hope) and andas (to breathe).
Why use mörkret here, which usually translates to 'the darkness'?
In Swedish, the neuter noun ett mörker (definite form: mörkret) covers both 'darkness' and 'the dark'. The phrase i mörkret is the direct, standard way to say 'in the dark' when referring to a lack of physical light.
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