Re: Swedish Chinese

Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>:

> > > Another thing is the ridicule directed at those who preserve a
> > > distinct feminine gender.
> >
> >What is it? Do you mean the *distinction* between masculine and
> >feminine, as in _den gode riddaren_ vs. _den goda kvinnan_? Or something
> >else?
>
> No, I mean to really have a feminine gender even for inanimate
> nouns like _sol_.  Speakers of these dialects also usualy have
> a distinct indefinite article _e_ [e(:)], and definite forms
> like _sola_.  Värmland is the stereotypical stronghold, but it
> holds true for a lot of other dialects too.  Traditionally most
> Göta dialects were three-gender.
My father's native dialect (central Småland) seems to assign non-human n-
gender words as _han_, _hon_ or _den_ quite randomly. Pronounced as if _a_,
_o_, _de_, BTW. Indefinite _e_ and definite _-a_ are used in all n-genders. Pl
_-ar_ also >_-a_, so Standard _bilen_ and _bilar_ merge as _bila_.

Final /n/ does not seem to exist except in stressed monosyllables.

> At 12:47 3.2.2004, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >I also have a set of cliticized object pronouns, so written _till honom_
> "to
> >him" may come out as [ten]. Historically, tho, that [-n] is from a reduced
> >form of _han_ "him (acc)" rather than form _honom_ "he" (originally dat,
> >IIRC).
>
> Really?  I have them when I'm consciously talking Bohuslänska.
Since I lived in Stenungsund from age five to eleven, I guess I may've picked
it up there. But all my family seems to have it, at different frequencies.

The full set:

masc:   -n
fem:    -na
common: -n
neuter: -t

In informal writing I sometimes treat _rom_ (reduced form of _dom_, reloaned
between dialects to cause an effective d>4>r` sound-change) as belonging to
the set, and write things like _slå'rom_, but that's just being obnoxious.

> I quite normally have objective _han_ in unmonitored speech,
> however.
OTOH, that sounds simply wrong to me.

                                                         Andreas