Breakdown of Stipendiaten gavs hela prissumman.
ge
to give
hel
whole
prissumman
the prize money
stipendiaten
the scholarship holder
Questions & Answers about Stipendiaten gavs hela prissumman.
Why is stipendiaten the subject of this sentence when they are receiving the money, not giving it?
This is a recipient passive. The active verb ge (to give) takes two objects: a recipient and a thing given. In Swedish, just like in English, you can take the recipient from an active sentence (like De gav stipendiaten prissumman) and make it the subject of a passive sentence to focus on who received the action.
How is the passive verb gavs formed?
It is the past tense s-passive of the irregular verb ge (to give). You take the active past tense form, gav (gave), and simply add an -s to make it passive: gavs (was given).
Could I use the bli-passive here and say Stipendiaten blev given hela prissumman?
No, that sounds very unnatural in Swedish. While the bli-passive works for many verbs, recipient passives strongly prefer the s-passive. You will almost exclusively see forms like gavs (was given), erbjöds (was offered), or tilldelades (was awarded) when the receiver is promoted to the subject.
Why is prissumman in the definite form after hela?
The adjective hel (whole or entire) is a bit special. When you use hela to mean the whole or the entire, the noun that follows it must be in the definite form. So, the entire prize money is hela prissumman, not hela prissumma.
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