Breakdown of Ett tjugotal nedsatta varor krossades i den stora butiken.
ett
a, an (neuter)
stor
big
i
in
butiken
the shop
Questions & Answers about Ett tjugotal nedsatta varor krossades i den stora butiken.
Why do we use the singular word Ett before a phrase that means "twenty"?
The suffix -tal turns a number into a neuter noun meaning "an amount of roughly [number]". So, ett tjugotal literally means "a twenty-count" or "a group of about twenty". The article Ett is singular because it agrees with the singular noun tjugotal, not the items themselves.
Since Ett tjugotal is a singular noun, shouldn't the adjective nedsatta take a singular form too?
No, because Ett tjugotal functions as a quantifier here (similar to "a bunch of" in English). The adjective nedsatta (discounted) directly describes the actual items, varor, which is plural. Therefore, the adjective takes the plural -a ending.
What kind of word is nedsatta here?
It is the plural form of the past participle nedsatt (reduced/discounted), which comes from the phrasal verb sätta ned (to put down or to reduce). In Swedish, past participles act just like adjectives, so it gets the plural -a ending to match the plural noun varor.
Is the -s on the end of krossades what makes it a passive verb?