Prepositions

The purpose of this post is just to give you a basic idea of the use of prepositions in Icelandic. Prepositions are a tricky thing in English and even trickier in Icelandic, where they govern different cases. Let’s begin with the prepositions, which govern only one case and could actually be helpful to decide which case to use in a sentence:

Prepositions governing the accusative case:

• um – about
• (í) gegnum – through
• kringum – around
• umfram – in addition
• fyrir framan – in front of
• fyrir aftan – behind
• fyrir handan – beyond
• fyrir neðan – underneath, below
• fyrir ofan – above
• fyrir utan – apart from

Prepositions governing the dative case:

• að – towards, up to
• gagnvart – towards
• frá – from
• af – off
• hjá – besides, by, with
• úr – out of
• handa – for
• á móti – against
• undan – from under
• nálægt – near
• ásamt – along

Prepositions governing the genitive case:

• til – to
• án – without
• auk – in addition, apart from
• milli – between
• vegna – due to, because of
• handan – on the other side
• innan – inside
• utan – outside
• ofan – above
• neðan – below

Some prepositions can be governing either the accusative or the dative case depending on the presence or the lack of movement. We use the accusative if there is a motion/change implied and dative if it’s a static situation ( the same at the end as it was at the start ). One popular example to illustrate this, can be found on Wikipedia and in some textbooks:

Kötturinn skríður undir rúmið. (The cat crawls under the bed)

Kötturinn skríður undir rúminu. (The cat is crawling under the bed)

In the first situation the cat has been somewhere else , crawling from one location to another and ending up under the bed. This change is reflected by the use of the accusative case.

In the second situation the cat has been under the bed, crawling within it, so no change has happened – from the beginning to the very end the cat is under the bed. There is a motion, but there is no actual change of the location, so the dative case is used.

• í – in

Ég ætla í vinnunna. (I intend to go to work.)

Ég er í vinnunni. (I am at work.)

• á – on

Ég setti bókina á borðið. (I put the book on the table.)

Bókin er á borðinu. (The book is on the table)

• eftir – after/behind, along/by (thе use of this preposition is not so defined by the presence of motion/change and depends more on the context and which meaning of all is used.) The same goes for the prepositions við (against to/at,by/to,with/at) and fyrir (before/for/in the way(obstacle)/on behalf of/ago).

eftir+acc – after, by (creation)

eftir+dat – according to/along

á eftir – behind, after

Bókin er eftir vinsælan höfund. (The book is by a popular author.)

Þú ert á eftir mér í röðinni. ( You are after me in the queue .)

• undir – under

Ég setti skóna undir rúmið.( I put the shoes under the bed.)

Kötturinn liggur undir rúminu. (The cat lies under the bed.)

• yfir – over

Flugvélin flaug yfir sjóinn. (The airplabe flew over the sea.)

Málverkið hangir yfir sófanum. (The painting hangs over the sofa.)

• með – with – it governs the dative case if the people/objects/subjects are equal; if the accompanying element wants to be there; if it’s used to show work with an instrument:

Ég fór í bíó með vinum mínum í gær. (I went to the cinema with my friends yesterday.)

Ég skrifa með blýanti. (I write with a pen.)

It governs the accusative case if one of the subjects is in control:

Hún kom með hundinn sinn. (She came with her dog.)

Prepositions of time:

• í – for – governs the dative case
• fyrir – ago – governs the dative case
• eftir – after – governs the accusative case
• á – it governs the accusative if something happens on a certain date or time and dative if this thing happens always on this day:

Ég fer í bíó á sunnudagin. (I am going to the cinema this Sunday.)

Ég spila borðspil á sunnudögum. (I play boаrd games on Sundays.)

If the prepositions mentioned above refer to a place, then they would govern the respective cases:

• í – in/into – governs either the accusative or the dative case
• fyrir – in front of – governs the dative case
• eftir – behind/along – governs the dative case

The prepositions can also be part of phrases, which require the use of certain case. For example:

að hringja í + þf (to call someone)

að hugsa til + ef (to think about someone)

The prepositions are definitely not easy, but can be hopefully mastered with a lot of practice.

Word order and questions

Asking questions in Icelandic is not so different than asking questions in English. What you need to know is the word order in the sentence, which interrogatives to use and in some cases, what grammatical case the verb or the preposition in a sentence governs.

Word order

In simple sentences, the word order is as it follows:

Subject-verb-object

Þú spilar borðspil. (You play board games.)

When formulating a question, the word order changes:

Verb-subject-object?

Spilаrðu borðspil? (Do you play board games?)

Note that it is common the personal pronoun þú to become part of the verb in questions and in this case þ can change to ð or can be dropped, depending on the verb to which þú is being added:

Ertu heima? (Are you at home?)

When interrogatives are in use, the interrogative is first, followed by the verb and the subject:

Hvað er þetta? (What is this?)

V2 Word order

According to this rule, the finite verb must always be the second constituent ( a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure ) of declarative sentences.

Let’s take for example this sentence:

Í gær fór ég í bíó. (Yesterday I went to the cinema.)

In the typical word order, the sentence would look like that:

Ég fór í bíó í gær. (I went to the cinema yesterday.)

When we move í gær to the first place in the sentence, the verb follows it as it should be the second unit in the sentence and after the verb, comes the subject.

No matter what the first unit is, the second must be the verb. Note that it shouldn’t be the second word, but the second unit. Í gær consists of two words, but it is just one unit. Think of the unit like a semantic part of the sentence.

Hv- words – the interrogatives:

Let’s take a look at the most used interrogatives in Icelandic:

• hvað – what
• hvar – where
• hver – who
• hvaða – which
• hvenær – when
• hvernig – how
• af hverju – why

In this list, hvað and hver are interrogative pronouns and they need to be declined in a sentence, according to the grammatical case, governed by the verb or by a preposition. The other interrogatives are adverbs and they do not need declining.

So, when using hvað or hver, you should have in mind what case governs the verb that you are going to use:

Hvað er klukkan? (What time is it?)

Same goes for the prepositions, but they can be at the beginning of the sentence:

Í hverju ertu? (What are you wearing?)

	kvk. eintala	kk. eintala	hk. eintala	kvk. fleirtala	kk. fleirtala	hk. fleirtala
nf.	hver	hver	hvað	hverjir	hverjar	hver
þf.	hvern	hverja	hvað	hverja	hverjar	hver
þgf.	hverjum	hverri	hverju	hverjum	hverjum	hverjum
ef.	hvers	hverrar	hvers	hverra	hverra	hverra

The genitive forms could be compared to the English whose:

Hvers sonur ertu? (Whose son are you?)

When asking about people, the masculine and feminine forms are used, and when asking about things, the neuter forms are used.