The inflectional morphology of the Swedish verb with respect to reverse order: analogy, pattern verbs and their key forms

Abstract

Learners of a language often try to construct analogy rules based on similarity. In the case of verbs, similarity can be defined with respect to reverse order of present infinitives. However, similar Swedish verbs need not belong to the same conjugation class. With regard to verbs ending in -a, there is a triple choice: e.g., skida belongs to the ist, smida to the 2nd and rida to the 4th conjugation. On the other hand, there are homogeneous groups whose verbs all belong to the same conjugation, e.g., all verbs ending in -änna belong to the 2nd conjugation. This phenomenon is a difficult hurdle for learners of Swedish. There is not any grammar book which comprehensively shows them where they can trust in this kind of analogy base. In this paper, this problem is dealt with from a descriptive, synchronic and graphematic point of view. Verb tables are presented which comprise the inflectional morphology of the entire Swedish verbal system. They meet four requirements: every arbitrary Swedish verb (without any exception) can be assigned to its pattern verb by a simple, right-bound, longest matching algorithm. Thus, it is shown where analogy rules are applicable. The key forms of each pattern verb are recorded so that every other verb form can be derived. The verb tables can easily be adapted to language changes.