All Nordic languages: Tense auxiliaries


  1. J.F. de TROYES Senior Member

    I am looking into verbal auxiliaries used in various languages and I don't know Scandinavian languages. I've got some information, but I'd like to clear up the question . I am wondering if Swedish and Norwegian use the auxiliary ha with all verbs in the active perfect and plusperfect or if there are exceptions. What about å bli ?

    As far as I know Danish uses as German both auxiliaries have and väre. What are the verbs functionning with väre only and those that admitt either auxiliary ?

    Please give translations in case of examples

    Thanks a lot for the information.
  2. myšlenka Senior Member

    in Norwegian all transitive verbs would use ha as auxiliary in the active present perfect and the plusperfect. The auxiliary bli would be the passive correspondent. You can also use være for transitives in the passive voice but with a slightly different meaning.

    As for certain intransitive verbs you can optionally use være as auxiliary instead of ha, just like in French (where it is obligatory) :)
    1) Han er gått. - il est allé.
    2) Han er reist. - il est parti.
    3) Han er kommet. - il est venu.

    I don't have a complete list of these verbs and I suspect that they are subject to a lot of dialectal variation.
  3. Tjahzi

    Tjahzi Senior Member

    Umeå, Sweden
    Swedish (Göteborg)
    Swedish is even stricter, we would always use ha. Even the above examples from Norwegian would be considered ungrammatical.
  4. Lugubert Senior Member

    That would be true for most cases of standard Swedish. But
    1) Han är gången. Perhaps rare, but totally ordinary Han är bortgången = He is deceased.
    2) Han är bortrest.
    3) Han är kommen. I'm sure this would be acceptable in Skåne.
  5. AutumnOwl

    AutumnOwl Senior Member

    Swedish - Sweden, Finnish
    Hon är hemkommen från sjukhuset would be acceptable in the whole of Sweden, as well as boken är bortkommen.
    The same is true for Vi är bortbjudna, so it seems at when using bort- and hem- the auxiliary is vara.
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2013
  6. Tjahzi

    Tjahzi Senior Member

    Umeå, Sweden
    Swedish (Göteborg)
    While I agree about those forms being normal Swedish (well, maybe not the third), the problem is that they are formed from the past participle (1)+(3) and adjectives (2), rather than the simple past or "plusperfect" (I assume it's the supine being referred) form.

    You certainly don't say

    1) Han är gått
    2) Han är rest
    3) Han är kommit

  7. AutumnOwl

    AutumnOwl Senior Member

    Swedish - Sweden, Finnish
    Isn't gången and kommen what's left of older forms of verb tenses, most forms have disappeared but there are still a few left. Just because we don't use all the old tense forms doesn't mean that there still are some forms where it's correct using vara instead of ha.
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2013
  8. Tjahzi

    Tjahzi Senior Member

    Umeå, Sweden
    Swedish (Göteborg)
    Sorry, I don't really understand what you are trying to say. Remains of old verb tenses? What tenses? I fully agree about there not being any cases where it's correct to use vara instead of ha though.

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