fattades

Fattades is a past tense form used in Swedish to express that something was lacking or missing. It functions as part of the impersonal construction fattas, which describes shortages, deficits, or absences of resources, information, or tasks. The subject in such sentences is often the thing that is absent, and the sentence may omit an explicit personal subject.

In everyday and formal Swedish, fattas appears in constructions that resemble “there was a lack of …” or “… was missing.” It is commonly found in reports, historical accounts, and news to convey shortfalls in things like funds, materials, or data. The past tense fattades is used when describing a situation that already occurred, such as in the sentence “Det fattades pengar till projektet” (There were not funds for the project) or “Under kriget fattes livsmedel” (Food was scarce during the war).

Examples:

- Det fattades pengar för projektet.

- Under kriget fattes livsmedel.

- Viktiga uppgifter fattades i rapporten.

Grammatically, fattas and fattades are impersonal; the agent or actor causing the shortage is not needed in the sentence. This makes the construction suitable for describing conditions, shortages, or deficiencies without specifying who or what caused them. Related expressions include saknas (to be missing) and avsaknad (absence). In usage, fattas and its past form fattades are primarily found in Swedish-language texts and are less common in everyday colloquial speech outside of reporting or narrative contexts.