icelandic cases grammar


Here horse/apple is the object of the sentence, being acted upon by the verb see/have. Neuter: no ending, Masculine: very irregular group. Please consider sending a donation of any amount to help support ielanguages.com. Examples could be emja ('squeal'), which belongs to one class (singular, first person, g emja, past tense g emjai) versus telja ('count'), belonging to another class, (g tel, past tense g taldi). being used and what are the functions of each one of them. 'was') is the second constituent of the sentence.

If the verb in the sentence does not govern a case, and there is no preposition then the noun will be in the nominative case. The primary ones are to indicate the direct object of the sentence, and to indicate location, usually with the prepositions and . g gaf hesti epli. ""You speak Icelandic.

The syntax here seems somewhat similar to a use of the verb help in English, when speakers say She helped build the house. The exceptions are a few verbs ending in -, for instance "sl" (hit), "fl" (flay) amongst various others, the auxiliaries "munu" and "skulu", "vo" ("wash"), originally "v" and the (frowned upon by purists) borrowing (from Danish) "ske" ("happen"). English fowl) or stofa (cf. If your native ", implying a choice between two alternatives.). icelandic language grammar text wikipedia periods bundle worksheet reading education level special colloquial photograph taken Having mentioned reversed or non-productive umlauts above, it remains to be stressed that the I- and U-umlauts are very much alive, both as a fixture of the declension system as well as being useful tools for composing neologisms. was) is the second lexical unit of the sentence. The nominative case does not exist. Although u-umlaut used to be completely regular in that every a followed by u was changed to , now there are new u's that don't trigger it from the Old Norse -r ending. Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. "**Hva ert a gera?"What are you doing?" Despite this, there are certain rules of syntax which are relatively inflexible. For this word it would be slenskur: Veiku is the weak declension of veikur (sick) in the accusative singular. Many verbs take the dative case, though, and a rare few take the genitive or even the nominative, apparently just to mess with you. "can be made into a question as follows:: "Talar slensku? The English language still has remnants of the Old English case system, which has also depended on inflections. Neuter: add i, Masculine: add s. If the noun ended in i in the nominative, it will end in an a in the genitive In Icelandic, the subject (or the agent) is in the nominative case (nom). If you forms of the same word (I), which represent different roles of the words in the sentence subject, object The word lta is used to mean "let" or "make". * [http://www.hum.uit.no/a/svenonius/lingua/flow/li/minig/enmini_is.html An Icelandic minigrammar] , Intercomprehension in Germanic Languages Online / University of Troms, 2003. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in four cases and two numbers, singular and plural. "Samsettar myndir sagna", Mlvsindastofnun Hskla slands, Reykjavk.] This relationship could include possession, origin, compound words, reference, description, substance, elements. To find the indirect object, ask There are three main groups of verbs in Icelandic: -a , -i , and -ur , referring to the endings that these verbs take when conjugated in the first person singular present. nean). This affects "a" only, and not "" or "au".

One way to understand cases in English is to see how we use them with personal pronouns. Learn from captions and translations and enjoy access to ALL languages! Instead, the simple present should be used (g sit). g s hest.

etta er epli* hans. where the three columns for each person represent masculine, feminine and neuter genders respectively. Ottsson, Kjartan (1986) Mrk ormyndunar og beygingar: Mimynd ntmaslensku. Note that if there are two "a's" preceding the "u", the first "a" becomes an "" and the second becomes a "u".

Here, the use of the dative implies an unchanging situation. ")**Hvaan kemur ?"Where do you come from?" Cases are simply the ending of a noun. For example: * "Safna" ('to collect or save') governs the dative case. They are as follows: These two personal pronouns are now archaic. This elision rule applies to many verbs, some having their own special forms (for example "vera", to be, has the form "ertu"). They have up to ten tenses, but Icelandic, like English, forms most of these with auxiliary verbs. The way in which words change in the different grammatical cases is called inflection. The nominative is the base case, that of a subject; it can be thought of as the uninflected form of the word. This is not a perfect definition, but it is a very good starting point. I will disappoint you it is a good start, but some verbs and prepositions require specific cases and many times they are contradictory to the main functions of each of the cases. So, to be able to use nouns in a sentence properly, you ):, j and j :au ey. pronouns, adjectives and some numerals are declined according to the gender, I see a horse. No really, English does have cases. (lit. Adjectives must agree with the gender, number and grammatical case of the nouns they describe. The definite article is being added to the declined form at the end of the word, but this is a topic for another post. This list is not exhaustive, and there are numerous exceptions in every case. Take the example below (subject in yellow, verb in blue, object in red)::"Mannfjldinn var 1.500""The population was 1,500"Here the element "var" (the past tense third person singular form of the verb "vera", to be, i.e. Read this so the cops can understand you more clearly! Now the cat is still crawling, but within the confines of under the bed.

Did you tell the cops that you're WITH the hostage instead of HAVE the hostage? It comes in two varieties: :i e (as for instance in niur vs. English has cases, too, just like Icelandic (so we dont get to complain about Icelandic being hard). g s hann. going to the restaurant. The I-umlaut is slightly more complex, and consists of the following vowel changes::a e: :e i:o e: :u y (It sometimes appears as if o y, but this is never the case. (lit. GENITIVE Lets take for example sentences in English and compare it with their Icelandic equivalents so you can see the difference: The declension of hundur is as it follows: As you can see, the role of the dog in these sentences is as it follows: subject, direct object, indirect object, nounmain-noun relationship (in this case possession). : g er a safna peningum til ess a geta keypt jlagjf handa mmmu. However, in another use, the intermediate subject is left out, but the second verb is still in the infinitive. This is an apple.

Its just that many more words inflect in Icelandic than in English . object of a sentence is the recipient of the direct object. This is mainly due to the fact that whilst being a Germanic language, English has lost most of its noun declension. Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. In the following examples the possessor is bolded. "**Hvort hann komi, veit g ekki."I dont know whether hes coming or not." I gave him an apple. "**Af hverju ekki?"Why not?"**Hv?"Why?"*"hvort?""whether/which?

Following are four examples of strong declension. Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders masculine, feminine or neuter. You could do a similar exercise to the above to see the similarity between English and Icelandic when it comes to personal pronouns: etta er hann. The gender of a noun can often be surmised by looking at the ending of the word: Icelandic does not have an indefinite article (a/an in English), and the definite article (the in English) is usually joined on to the end of the word. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. This elision rule applies to many verbs, some having their own special forms (for example vera, 'to be', has the form ertu).[3]. In this case, the pronoun moves to the end of the sentence: In English, changing the word order like this would either render a phrase nonsensical or make it sound poetic. In the sentence Iron Man gave Captain America Thors hammer, Captain America is the indirect object: he is receiving Thors hammer. Following is a table summarising everything discussed in this article. have more or less the same effect). There is also the "phantom" U-umlaut where some words historically ended in an -u but dropped the vowel, the change still occurs, some examples: Historically, there were four more additional forms of the U-umlaut; these are no longer productive or have been reversed. :u o. If we change the sentence, however::"ri 2000 var mannfjldinn 1.500""In 2000, the population was 1,500" (lit. In Icelandic, the indirect object (or the recipient) is generally in the dative case (dat). Icelandic nouns are declined in four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. ""Is Stefn hungry? Note that to govern the accusative, the preposition must imply movement towards or away from something, that is to say a changing situation. Let's set these confusing prepositions straight. The shifts occur very frequently across all word classes. Some examples::t"a"la"talk" (vi) t""lum"(we) talk":f"a"ra"go" (vi) f""rum"(we) go"If there is an intermediate syllable between the first "a" and the "u", then the U-shift does not take place. The most frequent occurrence of this is determined by whether or not motion towards or away from is implied by the context: , , eftir, yfir and undir are all affected in this way. Other exceptions include the auxiliaries munu and skulu; vo (wash), which was originally v; and a verb borrowed from Danish, ske (happen). Also of note, hv is rarely used. For poetical purposes, every combination is possible, even the rare OSV.

The strong verbs and the irregular verbs ("auxiliaries", "ri-verbs" and "valda") are a separate matter. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); lets talk about these monstrous declensions. Declensions will still be a "Which want you?

So in order to understand Icelandic cases, it helps to understand a bit about English grammar as well. The pronoun does not distinguish gender or number. milljn is feminine, milljarur is masculine and so on). The next question would likely be why wasnt Icelandic kind enough to get rid of them? Icelandic is not largely a grammatical language, but instead a lexical language. In the following examples the subject is bolded. In the following examples the indirect object is bolded.

It is mostly used in poetry and irregularly elsewhere (there are hardly any rules for the latter case; it is mainly a matter of taste). Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases, and for number in the singular and plural. It comes in two varieties: The U-umlaut occurs when a stem vowel a changes to because of a u in the next syllable. First of

Icelandic possesses only the definite article, which can stand on its own or be attached to its modified noun. sentence. Those are etymologically the same words, but "glas" is a borrowing and "gler" is native. "The year 2000 was the population 1,500")Here, "var" is still the second lexical unit of the sentence, despite the fact that it is not the second "word" in the sentence. A possessor is someone who possesses something (not everything about grammar needs to be complicated). * This isnt a different case, but the definite article form of epli, which is required for possessive constructions. There is a classification system for all verbs, with the paradigms going into the dozens. g gaf honum epli. idioms idiomatic "Where are you to go? The indirect

All nouns appear in the dictionary in the nominative case. Words decline in different cases, which is just fancy grammar jargon for they change. Strictly speaking, there are only two simple tenses in Icelandic, simple present and simple past. In the following examples, the pronouns hn (she), hana (her), and hennar (hers) all refer to the same person (lets say its Dame Judi Dench, because shes a treasure), but the different cases, which are bolded, show her different roles in each sentence. There is no general rule, you just have to learn which prepositions go with which cases, and apply them accordingly. If the verb is passive, it is the noun receiving the action. have more or less the same effect). Icelandic has also two extra lesser used personal pronouns. Take the example below (subject in yellow, verb in blue, object in red): Here the element var (the past tense third person singular form of the verb vera, 'to be', i.e. There are four common sentence elements which generally get assigned specific cases: A subject generally has the role of agent (AKA doer, AKA actor): the one doing whatever is happening in the sentence.

Everywhere -r didn't stand by a vowel an u was inserted in front of it, like in vanur from older vanr. "Whether he comes, know I not. (Peningum is the dative plural form of peningur (coin)), * "Sakna" ('to miss') governs the genitive case. The indirect object has the role of recipient; someone who receives something, usually the direct object. The indirect object is the answer to the question to who? (or to whom if youve got a stick up your ass about grammar), for example, Who did Iron Man give Thors hammer to? The answer is Captain America, so Captain America is the indirect object (recipient). Feminine: the same rules apply as the feminine accusative The I-shift affects verbs only in their singular conjugations. Nouns, They belong to three main noun classes (masculine, feminine, neuter) and can be inflected for number (singular, plural) and definiteness (definite, indefinite). language doesnt have grammatical cases, you may find the idea hard to There are some remnants of the case system left in English however, mainly in our personal pronouns (he->him->his). Modern Icelandic has only possessive pronouns for the first-person singular, second-person singular and the third-person reflexive. The singular accusative case endings are as follows: Masculine: remove the nominative ending. The personal pronouns in Icelandic are as follows: Icelandic has separate masculine, feminine and neuter words for they. words rather than inflections (changing the form of the words in order to Strong verbs fall into six groups augmented by reduplication verbs, each with exceptions (such as auxiliary verbs, the r-verbs, and the only verb in Icelandic that has been called 'totally irregular', valda). In the sentence Iron Man gave Captain America Thors hammer, Iron Man is the subject: the one who is doing the giving. A paradigm for enginn (nobody) is given below. Iron Man is the subject (agent), Thors hammer is the direct object (patient), and Captain America is the indirect object (recipient). You know how to use them without thinking about it, because youve completely internalized the grammar. This is an example of strong declension of adjectives. It also incorporates prepositions as case assigners as discussed in Cases and Prepositions.

The interrogatives in Icelandic are:*"hva?""what/how?

This is a story of a horse. Icelandic morphology is prototypical of Germanic/Indo-European languages. The verb 'valda' for example, becomes a totally regular one in the 2nd strong class. This is the oldest umlaut of all, attested in every Germanic language except, perhaps, Gothic. View all posts by Magdeliya. It indicates the subject of the sentence the person or thing, doing the action. Icelandic possesses the middle voice in addition to both the active and passive. However, the inflectional system allows for considerable freedom in word order. "vo" is, of course, very common, but "ske" can be avoided altogether. In Icelandic, the direct object (or the patient) is generally in the accusative case (acc). Well known examples include fugl (cf. Though bnunum is still used as well. ")**Hvort vilt ?"Which do you want?" The nominative case does not exist. In order to find this noun in the sentence, you must ask the Feminine: nouns which ended in a become ar. Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese and English with authentic videos by Yabla that include subtitles and translations. Yfir, undir and eftir all behave in the same way: Here the use of the accusative implies that the cat was not under the bed before, but is on its way there now. nightmare for some time though. : "I am saving money to be able to buy a Christmas gift for Mum." The phrase Helga Bjarni drap (Bjarni killed Helgi) might well occur in, say, a rma. Speakers must memorize which conjugation group a verb belongs to. The two auxiliaries are important, since they turn up in various places to make up for the poverty of simple tenses. For example, the present continuous is formed thus: This construction is not usually used with stative verbs. This happened after u-umlaut had already taken place and therefore doesn't trigger it, causing a bit of irregularity in the Modern Icelandic u-umlaut. For arguments sake, paradigm for "enginn" ("nobody") is given below. There are 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and 4 cases (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive). The subject and object of the verb then follow. "**Hvers vegna hann?"Why him? In this example, the preposition governs the dative; here the situation is static with no motion towards or away from implied. The nominative singular endings are as follows: Masculine: ur , l, n, i In languages with extensive case systems, a words inflection indicates its role in the sentence, and so things like word order become less strict. Some examples: If there is an intermediate syllable between the first a and the u, then the U-shift does not take place.

When talking about a group of mixed-gender people or items, the neuter form is used. In Icelandic, prepositions determine the case of the following noun. Take the infinitive tala ('to talk'), for example: Note how, for each of the verb groups, the conjugations in the singular change but, in the plural, the endings are nearly always predictable (-um, -i and -a, respectively). This is he. Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages, and resembles Old Norwegian before its inflection was greatly simplified. Have you wondered what the seemingly random "u" that pops up in many words is doing there? As a result, it changes from its nominative form to its accusative form, hest/epli. Well, lets talk about these monstrous declensions!