Breakdown of Hon kände på sig att han skulle ringa.
han
he
hon
she
ringa
to call
att
that
skulle
would
känna på sig
to have a feeling
Questions & Answers about Hon kände på sig att han skulle ringa.
What is the difference between kände på sig and just kände?
The phrase känna på sig is a fixed expression meaning to have a feeling, to sense, or to have a premonition about something. If you only used kände, it would mean she physically felt something, or that she knew a person or place. Adding the particle på and the reflexive pronoun sig changes it to an intuitive, internal feeling.
How would the verb phrase change if the sentence was about me instead of her?
You must change the reflexive pronoun to match the subject. If the subject is jag (I), the phrase becomes kände på mig (I had a feeling). For we, it would be vi kände på oss. The word sig is only used for third-person subjects like he, she, it, or they.
Why do we use skulle here instead of the past tense ringde?
This is an example of future in the past. Because the feeling happened in the past (kände), the future action she was anticipating (him calling) must be expressed with skulle (the past tense of ska) followed by the infinitive ringa. This works exactly like English, where will becomes would in past-tense narratives.
If we wanted to say she had a feeling that he would not call, where does inte go?
It goes before the first verb in the clause: ... att han inte skulle ringa. The phrase starting with att is a subordinate clause. In Swedish subordinate clauses, sentence adverbs like inte or alltid must be placed before the finite (conjugated) verb. This is often taught as the BIFF rule.
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