Icelandic grammar

Icelandic is an inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in four cases and two numbers, singular and plural.

Morphology

Many German speakers find Icelandic morphology familiar. Almost every morphological category in one language is represented in the other. Nouns are declined for case, number and gender; adjectives for case, number, gender and degree (weak and strong).

Icelandic possesses only the definite article, which can stand on its own, or, as in other North Germanic languages, be attached to its modified noun. Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. There are three voices: active, passive and medial; but it may be debated whether the medial voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs. There are only two simple tenses, past and present, but to make up for that there are a number of auxiliary constructions, some of which may be regarded as tenses, others as aspects to varying degrees.[1][2]

Nouns

See also: Strong noun and weak noun

Icelandic nouns are declined in four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. They vary in gender (masculine, feminine or neuter) and number (singular and plural). There are two main declension paradigms for each gender: strong and weak nouns, which are further divided in smaller groups for declension, according to many criteria (sound-shifts, consonant clusters, etc.) The following table shows four examples of strong declension.

number case masculine feminine neuter neuter
singular nom. hattur borg glas gler
acc. hatt borg glas gler
dat. hatti borg glasi gleri
gen. hatts borgar glass glers
plural nom. hattar borgir glös gler
acc. hatta borgir glös gler
dat. höttum borgum glösum gler(j)um
gen. hatta borga glasa gler(j)a

The gender of a noun can often be surmised by looking at the ending of the word:

Articles

Icelandic does not have an indefinite article (a/an in English), and the definite article (the) is usually joined on to the end of the word. The table below shows the different suffix forms for the three genders. This list is not exhaustive, and there are numerous exceptions in every case.

No article Definite article
masculine feminine neuter masculine feminine neuter
sing. plu. sing. plu. sing. plu. sing. plu. sing. plu. sing. plu.
-ur -ar - -ir - - -urinn -arnir -in -irnar -ið -in
-i -inn
-ll -a -ur -llinn -an -urnar
-nn -nninn

The examples below shows three nouns, one for each respective gender, declined in the nominative:

The independent or free-standing definite article (not attached to the noun as a suffix) exists in Icelandic in the form hinn. 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).

Pronouns

Personal

The personal pronouns in Icelandic are as follows:

case 1st person 2nd person 3rd person
masculine feminine neuter gender-neutral
singular nom. ég þú hann hún það hán
acc. mig þig hann hana það hán
dat. mér þér honum henni því háni
gen. mín þín hans hennar þess háns
plural nom. við þið þeir þær þau
acc. okkur ykkur þá þær þau
dat. okkur ykkur þeim
gen. okkar ykkar þeirra

Icelandic has separate masculine, feminine and neuter words for they. When talking about a group of mixed gender people or items, the neuter form is used.

Like in English, the pronoun usually comes before the verb, as in the example below:

ég heiti Magnús—I am called Magnús

But, just as easily, the order of the sentence may be inverted. In this case, the pronoun moves to the end of the sentence:

Magnús heiti ég—Magnús I am called (or, literally Magnús called am I)

In English, changing the word order like this would either render a phrase nonsensical or make it sound poetic. This is mainly due to the fact that whilst being a Germanic language, English has lost most of its noun declension. See syntax for more information.

Reflexive

Icelandic possesses a reflexive pronoun, functioning in much the same way as German sich. The nominative case does not exist.

case pronoun
acc. sig
dat. sér
gen. sín

For example,

hann þvær sér—he washes himself,

as opposed to being bathed by another,

hún klæðir sig—she dresses herself,

as opposed to being dressed. The pronoun does not distinguish gender or number.

Possessive

The Icelandic possessive pronouns for the respective grammatical persons are as follows,

case 1st person 2nd person 3rd person
singular nom. minn mín mitt þinn þín þitt sinn sín sitt
acc. minn mína mitt þinn þína þitt sinn sína sitt
dat. mínum minni mínu þínum þinni þínu sínum sinni sínu
gen. míns minnar míns þíns þinnar þíns síns sinnar síns
plural nom. mínir mínar mín þínir þínar þín sínir sínar sín
acc. mína mínar mín þína þínar þín sína sínar sín
dat. mínum þínum sínum
gen. minna þinna sinna

where the three columns for each person represent masculine, feminine and neuter genders respectively. Minn means mine, þinn means yours and sinn means his, her, its or theirs.

Demonstrative

The Icelandic demonstrative pronouns are as follows,

case "this" "that" "the other"
singular nom. þessi þessi þetta sá sú það hinn hin hitt
acc. þennan þessa þetta þann þá það hinn hina hitt
dat. þessum þessari þessu þeim þeirri því hinum hinni hinu
gen. þessa þessarar þessa þess þeirrar þess hins hinnar hins
plural nom. þessir þessar þessi þeir þær þau hinir hinar hin
acc. þessa þessar þessi þá þær þau hina hinar hin
dat. þessum þeim hinum
gen. þessara þeirra hinna

where the three columns for each person represent masculine, feminine and neuter genders respectively. Þessi and sá roughly correspond to this/that and hinn means the other one of two.

Indefinite

There are around fifteen to twenty of these, depending on how you count. A paradigm for enginn (nobody) is given below. It is inflected thus:

nobody case Masculine Feminine Neuter
singular nom. enginn (engi) engin (engi) ekkert (ekki)
acc. engan (öng(v)an) enga (öng(v)a) ekkert (ekki)
dat. engum (öng(v)um) engri (öngri) engu (öng(v)u)
gen. einskis (einkis) engrar (öngrar) einskis (einkis)
plural nom. engir (öng(v)ir) engar (öng(v)ar) engin (engi)
acc. enga (öng(v)a) engar (öng(v)ar) engin (engi)
dat. engum (öng(v)um)
gen. engra (öngra)

This is probably the most colourful pronoun in Icelandic, but note that one can never go wrong using the first given forms. The forms in parentheses are either dialectal variations or archaic forms, used for poetic purposes. In time, however, one encounters all these forms. There is at least one more fossilized form, einugi, which is the dative of the singular neuter. It is preserved in the saying:

Fátt er svo illt, að einugi dugi, it roughly translates as:
Few things are so bad that nothing helps.

Numerals

The numbers one to four are declined for the respective cases and genders:

one masculine feminine neuter
nominativeeinneineitt
accusativeeinneinaeitt
dativeeinumeinnieinu
genitiveeinseinnareins
two masculine feminine neuter
nominativetveirtværtvö
accusativetvotværtvö
dativetveimur
genitivetveggja
three masculine feminine neuter
nominativeþrírþrjárþrjú
accusativeþrjáþrjárþrjú
dativeþremur
genitiveþriggja
four masculine feminine neuter
nominativefjórirfjórarfjögur
accusativefjórafjórarfjögur
dativefjórum
genitivefjögurra

Other numbers are as follows and not declined, except for those that are actually nouns:

fivefimmnineteennítján
sixsextwentytuttugu
sevensjötwenty-onetuttugu og einn
eightáttathirtyþrjátíu
nineníufortyfjörutíu
tentíufiftyfimmtíu
elevenellefusixtysextíu
twelvetólfseventysjötíu
thirteenþrettáneightyáttatíu
fourteenfjórtánninetyníutíu
fifteenfimmtán(one) hundred(eitt) hundrað
sixteensextán(one) thousand(eitt) þúsund
seventeensautján(one) million(ein) milljón
eighteenátjánzeronúll

The word hundrað is actually a neuter noun, þúsund can be either feminine or neuter and the higher multiples of a thousand are either masculine or feminine, according to the ending (e.g. milljón is feminine, milljarður is masculine and so on). Núll is neuter.

Adjectives

Adjectives must agree with the gender and number of the nouns they describe. For example, the word íslenskur (Icelandic) agrees as follows:

Icelandic (strong) case Masculine FeminineNeuter
singular nom. íslenskur íslensk íslenskt
acc. íslenskan íslenska íslenskt
dat. íslenskum íslenskri íslensku
gen. íslensks íslenskrar íslensks
plural nom. íslenskir íslenskar íslensk
acc. íslenska íslenskar íslensk
dat. íslenskum
gen. íslenskra

In strong declension, for example:

Ég bý með íslenskri konu—I live with an Icelandic woman

Both íslenskri and konu are dative singular. In this case, the preposition með governs the case (með can also take the accusative). This is an example of strong declension of adjectives. If an adjective is modified by the article, or most pronouns, weak declension is used. For this word it would be íslenskur:

Icelandic (weak) case Masculine FeminineNeuter
singular nom. íslenski íslenska íslenska
acc., dat., gen. íslenska íslensku íslenska
plural All cases íslensku

An example of weak declension:

Ég sá veiku konuna—I saw the sick woman

Veiku is the weak declension of veikur (sick) in the accusative singular. Konuna is also accusative singular, but with the definite article attached (-na), and the article forces the adjective to be weak. Here the verb governs the case. The weak forms of nouns are often found in names of organisations, symbols, days and titles, for example:

Here there are far fewer forms to learn, three in total, although one has to learn how they are distributed.

Verbs

There are four moods in Icelandic: indicative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive. As with most inflected languages, the verbs in Icelandic determine (or govern) the case of the subsequent nouns, pronouns and adjectives of a sentence. For example:

Ég er að safna peningum til þess að geta keypt jólagjöf handa mömmu.
I am saving money to be able to buy a Christmas gift for Mum. (Peningum is the dative plural form of peningur (coin))
Ég sakna þín
I miss you

In the infinitive, most Icelandic verbs end in -a. The exceptions include a few verbs ending in -á, such as slá (‘hit’); flá (‘flay’). Other exceptions include the auxiliaries munu and skulu; þvo (wash), which was originally þvá; and a verb borrowed from Danish that is frowned upon by purists, ske (happen). The two auxiliaries are important, since they turn up in various places to make up for the poverty of simple tenses. Þvo is, of course, very common, but ske can be avoided altogether. There are three main groups of weak verbs in Icelandic: -ar, -ir, and -ur, referring to the endings that these verbs take when conjugated in the third person singular present. The strong verbs and the irregular verbs (auxiliaries, ri-verbs and valda) are a separate matter. Take the infinitive tala (‘to talk’), for example:

Number Singular Plural
Person ég
I 		þú
you (sg.) 		hann/hún/það
he/she/it 		við
we 		þið
you (pl.) 		þeir/þær/þau
they
tala
to talk 		tala
talk 		talar
talk 		talar
talks 		tölum
talk 		talið
talk 		tala
talk

And compare with the verb vera (‘to be’), a strong verb, and a highly irregular one at that, but useful for comparison:

vera
to be 		er
am 		ert
are 		er
is 		erum
are 		eruð
are		 eru
are

Læra (‘to learn’) is an -i verb:

læra
to learn 		læri
learn 		lærir
learn 		lærir
learns 		lærum
learn 		lærið
learn		 læra
learn

And finally velja (‘to choose’), which is an -ur verb:

velja
to choose 		vel
choose 		velur
choose 		velur
chooses 		veljum
choose 		veljið
choose		 velja
choose

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, -ið and -a, respectively). Most English present verbs are regular and have only one change in ending (-s for third person singular). In most cases in Icelandic, the conjugation patterns remain regular across most verbs. A verb's conjugation cannot be determined from its infinitive. Speakers must memorize which conjugation group a verb belongs 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). There is a classification system for all verbs, with the paradigms going into the dozens.

Some Icelandic infinitives end with a -ja suffix. These verbs can be conjugated like -ur verbs, with the suffix lost in the first person singular. When conjugating -ja verbs, the single ‘j’ must be removed, so syngja (‘to sing’) would become ég syng (‘I sing’) in the first person singular and not ég syngj (and syngja is a strong verb (past tense söng), so irregularities are to be expected). The j in itself is not a reliable indicator. Examples could be emja (‘squeal’), which belongs to one class (singular, first person, ég emja, past tense ég emjaði) versus telja (‘count’), belonging to another class, (ég tel, past tense ég taldi).

The six primary conjugation classes are characterized as follow:

1.weak: thematic "-a" verbs, present singular in "-ar", past indicative in aði, past participle in -aður. This is the totally regular class, with the infinitive being the only principal part. The i-umlaut is not used.

2.weak: no visible theme vowel, present singular in "-ir", past indicative with various dental suffix plus i, past participle various. The principal parts are the infinitive, past indicative 1st person singular and past participle. The i-umlaut is not used.

3.weak: with j in infinitive, present singular in -ur, past indicative with various dental suffix plus i, past participle various. The principal parts are the infinitive, past indicative 1st person singular and past participle. The i-umlaut is used (already contained in the present, and regularly used in the second conjunctive)

1.strong: no thematic signs, present singular in -ur, past indicative with various changes and without the i ending, past participle various. The principal parts are the infinitive, past indicative 1st person singular, past indicative 1st person plural and past participle. The i-umlaut is regularly used in the present singular and second conjunctive.

2.strong: no thematic signs, present singular in -ur, past indicative with various changes and i, past participle various. The principal parts are the infinitive, past indicative 1st person singular and past participle. The i-umlaut is regularly used in the present singular and second conjunctive. This class also encompasses most of the ri verbs.

3.strong: also known as preterite-present. no thematic signs, present singular takes the past tense endings from 1.strong class, often with some irregular ending changes in the 2nd person. Past indicative with various changes and i ending, past participle various. The principal parts are the infinitive, present indicative 2nd person singular, past indicative 1st person singular and past participle. The i-umlaut is regularly used in the second conjunctive.

This classification, with its focus on inflectional features rather than etymologies, leaves very few irregular verbs. The verb 'valda' for example, becomes a totally regular one in the 2nd strong class.

Tenses

Strictly speaking, there are only two simple tenses in Icelandic, simple present and simple past. All other tenses are formed using auxiliary constructions (some of these are regarded as tenses, others as aspects). For example, the present continuous is formed thus:

vera + að + infinitive verb
ég er að læra
I am learning

This construction usually only applies to abstract concepts, and is not used for activities. For example, to sit would not use this construction. Instead, the simple present should be used (ég sit).

The collective tenses are:

Voice

Icelandic possesses the middle voice in addition to both the active and passive. Verbs in the middle voice always end in -st; this ending can be added to both the infinitive and conjugated verb forms. For the conjugated forms, second and third person endings (i.e. -(u)r, -ð and -rð) must be removed, as must any dental consonants (ð, d and t). Compare the verb breyta (‘to change’) to its middle voice forms, for example:[3]

breyta
to change 		breyti
change 		breytir
change 		breytir
changes 		breytum
change 		breytið
change		 breyta
change
breytast
to change 		breytist
change 		breytist
change 		breytist
changes 		breytumst
change 		breytist
change		 breytast
change

The middle voice form of many verbs carries a slightly different meaning, and in some cases may carry a different meaning altogether. Some verbs survive only in their middle voice form, the other forms having been lost over time. The middle voice is generally used in the following situations to express:

Subjunctive mood

Like many other Indo-European languages, Icelandic has the subjunctive mood. It is often used to refer to situations with a degree of hypotheticity, but more specifically in the following situations:

Adverbs

Compared to other lexical categories, Icelandic adverbs are relatively simple, and are not declined, except in some cases for comparison. They can be constructed easily from adjectives, nouns and verbs. These derived adverbs often end in -lega (approximately equivalent to the -ly suffix in English):

nýr—new ⇒ nýlega—lately (lit. newly)

The adverbs ending in -lega can be declined for comparison.

hætta—danger ⇒ hættulega→hættulegar→hættulegast, i.e. dangerously→more dangerously→most dangerously.

This is a regular way to form adverbs. Another way is to take the neutral nominative singular of an adjective and turn it into an adverb:

blítt—gentle ⇒ blítt—gently, cf. hún sefur blítt—she sleeps gently

Another way is taking the stem of an adjective and add an a:

illur—bad ⇒ illa—badly, cf. hann hagar sér illa—he behaves badly (illur never takes the -lega suffix).

Like in English, many common adverbs do not stick to these patterns but are adverbs in their own right:

bráðum—soon
núna—now
oft—often
strax—right away

The basic adverbs of direction include:

austur—east
norður—north
suður—south
vestur—west
inn—in
innan—from within
utan—from outside
út—out

Inn and út denote motion, going in and going out.

Other word classes

Prepositions

In Icelandic, prepositions determine the case of the following noun. Some examples are given below:

accusative dative genitive acc. or dat. depending on context
um—about að—at, with til—to á—on
gegnum—through af—of án—without eftir—after
umfram—in addition frá—from meðal—amongst fyrir—before
kringum—around hjá—with milli—between í—in
umhverfis—around úr—out of sökum—due to með—with
andspænis—opposite vegna—because undir—under
ásamt—along handan—beyond við—by
gagnvart—towards innan—inside yfir—over
gegn—through utan—outside
gegnt—vis-à-vis ofan—above
handa—for neðan—below
meðfram—along
móti—opposite, against
undan—from under

The case governed by prepositons depends on the context. The most frequent occurrence of this is determined by whether or not motion towards or away from is implied by the context: í, á, eftir, yfir and undir are all affected in this way. The following examples demonstrate this:

Jón fer á veitingahúsið—Jón goes to the restaurant

Here the preposition á governs the accusative case because specific motion towards/away from is implied, i.e. going to the restaurant.

Jón er á veitingahúsinu—Jón is at the restaurant

In this example, the preposition á governs the dative; here the situation is static with no motion towards or away from implied. Yfir, undir and eftir all behave in the same way:

Kötturinn skríður undir rúmið—The cat crawls under the bed

Here the use of the accusative implies that the cat was not under the bed before, but is on its way there now.

Kötturinn skríður undir rúminu—The cat is crawling under the bed

Here, the use of the dative implies an unchanging situation. Now the cat is still crawling, but within the confines of under the bed. Note that to govern the accusative, the preposition must imply movement towards or away from something, that is to say a changing situation. If the situation is static, i.e., the same at the end as it was at the start, then the preposition governs the dative.

Syntax

Basic word order

Icelandic word order is SVO (subject–verb–object), generally speaking, with the subject and verb inverted in questions and when a sentence begins with an adverb. However, the inflectional system allows for considerable freedom in word order. For poetical purposes, every combination is possible, even the rare OSV. The phrase Helga Bjarni drap (Bjarni killed Helgi) might well occur in, say, a ríma.

Despite this, certain rules of syntax are relatively inflexible. For example, the main verb must always be the second lexical unit of the sentence (this is a feature known as V2 word order, as is common to many Germanic languages). Take the example below (subject in yellow, verb in blue, object in red):

Mannfjöldinn 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. ‘was’) is the second lexical unit of the sentence. If we change the sentence, however:

Árið 2000 var mannfjöldinn 1.500—In 2000, the population was 1,500 (lit. 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. The prepositional phrase árið 2000 (highlighted in green) counts as one lexical unit, and so for the verb to be the second lexical unit, it must come after 2000 and not after árið. The subject and object of the verb then follow. An exception to this rule arises when forming questions by inversion:

Stefán er svangur—Stefán is hungry

and when turned into a question:

Er Stefán svangur?—Is Stefán hungry?

Here the subject and verb have been inverted to form a question, meaning the verb is the first lexical unit in the sentence as opposed to the second. This method of forming questions is used in many languages, including English.

Questions

As we have seen, questions can be easily formed by rearranging the order of the sentence from subject–verb–object to verb–subject–object. For example:

Þú talar íslensku.—You speak Icelandic.

can be made into a question as follows:

Talar þú íslensku?—Do you speak Icelandic? (lit. Speak you Icelandic?)

The inversion rule still applies when interrogatives are involved, which are simply added to the front of the sentence. The interrogatives in Icelandic are:

However, interrogative pronouns (hvað/hver) must decline with the verb that they modify, so the case of the pronoun changes depending on the verb. The meaning of a sentence does not change whether hvers vegna or af hverju is used; however they are used in a specific manner in Icelandic. Also of note, hví is rarely used.

Causatives

Icelandic has a causative construction that can feel quite alien to English speakers (but which is similar to constructions in other languages). The word láta is used to mean "let" or "make". In one use, it is quite similar to English.

However, in another use, the intermediate subject is left out, but the second verb is still in the infinitive.

The syntax here seems somewhat similar to a use of the verb help in English, when speakers say She helped build the house.[7]

Sound shifts

There are a number of sound shifts that occur in Icelandic, detailed below. The shifts occur very frequently across all word classes. For one of the most thorough books about the subject see Íslenzk málfræði handa æðri skólum.[8]

A-umlaut

This is the oldest umlaut of all, attested in every Germanic language except, perhaps, Gothic. It comes in two varieties:

i ⇒ e (as for instance in niður vs. neðan).
u ⇒ o. Well known examples include fugl (cf. English fowl) or stofa (cf. German Stube).

This umlaut is no longer productive.

U-umlaut

The U-umlaut occurs when a stem vowel a changes to ö because of a u in the next syllable. This affects a only, and not á or au. Some examples:

tala—talk ⇒ (við) tölum—(we) talk
fara—go ⇒ (við) förum—(we) go

If there is an intermediate syllable between the first a and the u, then the U-shift does not take place.

U-umlaut is not to be confused with breaking although they appear similar.

Note that if there are two a's preceding the u, the first a becomes an ö and the second becomes a u. An example:

fagnaður—joy ⇒ fögnuðum—joys (dative, plural).

Exceptions to this include several borrowings, for instance banani—banana ⇒ banönum (dative plural) and Arabi—Arab ⇒ Aröbum (also dative plural).

There is also the "phantom" U-amlaut where some words historically ended in an -u but dropped the vowel, the change still occurs, some examples:

saddur-(masculine) ⇒ södd-(feminine) satiated
danskur-(masculine) ⇒ dönsk-(feminine) Danish

Historically, there were four more additional forms of the U-umlaut; these are no longer productive or have been reversed.

I-umlaut

The I-umlaut is slightly more complex, and consists of the following vowel changes:

a ⇒ e
á ⇒ æ
e ⇒ i
o ⇒ e
ó ⇒ æ
u ⇒ y (It sometimes appears as if o ⇒ y, but this is never the case. An example: Sonur (singular) ⇒ synir (plural) might give the impression of an I-umlaut, but the original vowel in sonur was u changed to o by the A-umlaut.)
ú, jú and jó ⇒ ý
au ⇒ ey

The above effects of the I-umlaut are most visible in strong verbs. Take the verb hafa (‘to have’), for example:

Number Singular Plural
Person ég
I 		þú
you		 hann/hún/það
he/she/it 		við
we 		þið
you (pl.) 		þeir/þær/þau
they
hafa
to have 		hef
have 		hefur
have 		hefur
has 		höfum
have 		hafið
have 		hafa
have

In the singular conjugation, the I-umlaut has caused the stem a to become an e. If we look at the plural conjugation however, we can see that the stem a remains intact here, with the notable exception of the ‘við’ form, where a U-umlaut has taken place (thanks to the -um ending). The I-shift affects verbs only in their singular conjugations.

(The verb hafa actually has two acceptable conjugations. The first is the above, the second goes (ég) hefi, (þú) hefir, (hann) hefir.)

Less known, non-productive and reversed changes include:

o ⇒ ø
ǫ ⇒ ø

Other umlauts

Historically, there were many more umlauts in Icelandic, including

These are much more limited in scope, and operate more or less in the same way as the above-mentioned umlauts (i.e. have more or less the same effect). 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. This applies to breaking as well.

Elision

A form of elision occurs when asking questions in the second person; the verb and þú have a tendency to merge to ease pronunciation. This is reflected in writing, and so one would more often encounter talarðu as opposed to the expanded form talar þú. The actual change undergone here is the transformation of the voiceless dental fricative þ into the voiced dental fricative ð. This elision rule applies to many verbs, some having their own special forms (for example vera, ‘to be’, has the form ertu).[3]

References

  1. ↑ Jón Friðjónsson (1989). Samsettar myndir sagna, Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands, Reykjavík.
  2. ↑ Kress, Bruno (1982). Isländische Grammatik, VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig.
  3. 1 2 3 Neijmann, Daisy (2001). Colloquial Icelandic. Routledge. pp. 201–202. ISBN 0-415-20706-1.
  4. ↑ Einarsson, Stefán (31 December 2000). Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 576. ISBN 0-8018-6357-0.
  5. ↑ Ottósson, Kjartan (1986) Mörk orðmyndunar og beygingar: Miðmynd í nútímaíslensku. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 8 63-119
  6. ↑ http://www.inntokuprof.is/isl_stod1_fyr.pdf Page 87
  7. ↑ Thráinsson, Höskuldur (2007). The Syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge University Press. p. 454. ISBN 0-521-59190-2.
  8. ↑ Halldór Halldórsson (1950). Íslenzk málfræði handa æðri skólum. Ísafoldarprentsmiðja h.f., Reykjavík.

External links

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