Breakdown of Tusentals övergivna kundvagnar hittades utanför den stora butiken.
hitta
to find
stor
big
butiken
the shop
den
the (with en-words)
övergiven
abandoned
utanför
outside (preposition)
tusentals
thousands of
kundvagnen
the shopping cart
Questions & Answers about Tusentals övergivna kundvagnar hittades utanför den stora butiken.
Why is it tusentals with an -s here instead of ett tusental?
While ett tusental is a singular noun meaning "about a thousand", adding the -s creates the plural quantifier tusentals, meaning "thousands of". It modifies the noun directly, so you don't need a Swedish equivalent for the English word "of".
How does tusentals affect the grammar of the words that follow it?
Because tusentals expresses a plural amount, the noun it describes must be in the plural indefinite form, which is kundvagnar here. Any adjectives before that noun must also take the plural ending, resulting in övergivna.
Why does the adjective övergivna end in -na?
Övergivna is the past participle of the verb överge (to abandon), functioning here as an adjective. For participles ending in -en like övergiven, the plural form changes the ending to -na to agree with the plural noun kundvagnar.
What role does the -s play in the word hittades?
It creates the passive voice in the past tense. The active past tense is hittade (found), but adding -s makes it hittades (were found). This shows that the shopping carts received the action rather than doing the finding themselves.
Why is it den stora butiken and not just den stora butik?
This is an example of Swedish double definiteness. When a definite noun is modified by an adjective, you almost always need both the freestanding definite article den (or det/de) and the definite suffix on the noun itself, which is the -en in butiken.
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