Annotated Text: A Legal Clause (C2) | Icelandic Grammar

The register/legal-administrative page sets out the theory of legal Icelandic — what its markers are and why it is the most conservative living register. This page does the opposite: it takes a genuine, public-domain legal text and reads it line by line, so you can see the theory operating in a real document. Icelandic statutes are in the public domain and published openly by the Alþingi, so we can quote the actual text rather than invent a pastiche. Our text is the opening of the supreme law of the land: the Stjórnarskrá lýðveldisins Íslands ("Constitution of the Republic of Iceland"), Act no. 33/1944, articles 1, 2, and 5, quoted verbatim from the official consolidated text on althingi.is. The English glosses are this guide's own. The load-bearing insight is that a legal clause is a concentrated genitive-and-modality exercise: it stacks genitives into long left-branching chains and carries binding obligation on the modal skal — and almost nothing else of conversational Icelandic survives in it.

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Icelandic laws are public and quotable. This page reads the real constitution, not a pastiche. The grammar you meet here — skal, the postposed stjórnarskrá þessari, the genitive chains, the impersonal passive — is exactly the grammar mapped abstractly on register/legal-administrative; seeing it in a genuine statute is the point.

The text

Here are the three articles, exactly as published (the bracketed article-numbers are the statute's own), with a word-by-word crib:

Stjórnarskrá lýðveldisins Íslands (33/1944)	Word-by-word
gr. Ísland er lýðveldi með þingbundinni stjórn.	Iceland is a-republic with parliament-bound(dat.) government(dat.).
gr. Alþingi og forseti Íslands fara saman með löggjafarvaldið.	Althing and president of-Iceland(gen.) go together with the-legislative-power(acc.).
Forseti og önnur stjórnarvöld samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari og öðrum landslögum fara með framkvæmdarvaldið.	President and other authorities-of-government pursuant-to constitution(dat.) this(dat.) and other(dat.) laws-of-the-land(dat.) go with the-executive-power(acc.).
Dómendur fara með dómsvaldið.	Judges go with the-judicial-power(acc.).
gr. Forseti skal kjörinn beinum, leynilegum kosningum af þeim, er kosningarrétt hafa til Alþingis.	President shall [be] elected by-direct(dat.), secret(dat.) elections(dat.) by those, who voting-right(acc.) have to the-Althing(gen.).

The whole-sentence translations: Art. 1 — "Iceland is a republic with parliamentary government." Art. 2 — "The Althing and the President of Iceland together hold the legislative power. The President and other governmental authorities, pursuant to this Constitution and other statutes, hold the executive power. The judges hold the judicial power." Art. 5 — "The President shall be elected by direct, secret election by those who have the right to vote in elections to the Althing."

Look at Article 5: Forseti skal kjörinn … The verb is skal ("shall"), the third-person singular of skulu, and it is doing the single most important job in legal language — imposing a binding obligation. This is not a prediction ("the president will be elected") and not the everyday á að / verður að ("ought to / has to") of conversation; it is the deontic shall of statute, the language of what must legally be so. Note too the compression: there is no expressed vera ("be") — skal kjörinn is "shall [be] elected," the copula left to be understood, a terseness typical of the register. (The modal system is on verbs/modal-mega-kunna-skulu.)

Forseti skal kjörinn beinum, leynilegum kosningum.

The President shall be elected by direct, secret election. — the deontic skal imposes a binding constitutional duty (not a mere prediction); the copula vera is elided (skal [vera] kjörinn); kosningum is dative, the means of election. (Constitution Art. 5)

Forseti skal vera kjörgengur til Alþingis.

The President shall be eligible for [election to] the Althing. — skal vera, the obligation made explicit with the copula; the everyday equivalent verður að vera would be far too weak and informal for a statute. (illustrative, in the style of the text)

For the English-speaking reader, skal maps neatly onto legal "shall" — but the trap is the reverse direction: do not reach for the conversational verður að / á að when producing legal text. In a statute, obligation is skal/skulu, full stop.

Annotation 2 — the postposed demonstrative: stjórnarskrá þessari

In the second sentence of Article 2 sits the register's fastest tell: samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari — "pursuant to constitution this," noun before demonstrative. Everyday Icelandic would say þessari stjórnarskrá (demonstrative first); the legal text inverts it to stjórnarskrá þessari, the demonstrative trailing its noun like an official seal. It agrees fully — þessari is feminine dative singular, matching stjórnarskrá in the dative governed by samkvæmt. This postposed order is archaic; it was ordinary in older Icelandic and survives almost only here. (Full treatment on register/legal-administrative.)

...samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari og öðrum landslögum...

...pursuant to this Constitution and other statutes... — the POSTPOSED demonstrative stjórnarskrá þessari ('constitution this'), feminine dative agreeing with the noun; everyday Icelandic would front it (þessari stjórnarskrá). The trailing demonstrative is a near-exclusive marker of legal register. (Constitution Art. 2)

Lög þessi öðlast þegar gildi.

This Act enters into force at once. — the same postposed pattern with lög þessi ('Act this', neuter plural) plus the formulaic öðlast gildi ('enters into force'); a standard closing line of Icelandic statutes. (formulaic legal)

Annotation 3 — the left-branching genitive chain

Legal Icelandic stacks genitives, and they branch leftward: the modifier follows its head, so each genitive hangs off the noun immediately to its left, building a rightward train. Article 2 gives a clean one in forseti Íslands ("the President of Iceland") and a longer one in Article 5: þeim, er kosningarrétt hafa til Alþingis contains the genitive Alþingis ("of the Althing") governed by til, and kosningarréttur til Alþingis is itself "the right-to-vote of/to the Althing." Watch how the genitive ending alone tells you what attaches to what.

...af þeim, er kosningarrétt hafa til Alþingis.

...by those who have the right to vote in elections to the Althing. — genitive Alþingis ('of the Althing') governed by til; kosningarrétt (acc.) is the object of hafa. The relative er ('who') with no inflection is the bare, formal relative particle. (Constitution Art. 5)

Vernd réttinda borgaranna er meginmarkmið stjórnarskrárinnar.

Protection of the rights of the citizens is a chief aim of the constitution. — a left-branching chain: vernd [réttinda [borgaranna]] ('protection of-the-rights of-the-citizens') and meginmarkmið stjórnarskrárinnar ('a-chief-aim of-the-constitution'); parse head-first, then attach each genitive to the noun on its left. (illustrative)

To parse it: take the first noun as the head, then read each following genitive as "of the …," nesting each into the one before. Vernd [réttinda [borgaranna]] = "protection [of the rights [of the citizens]]." Do not attach the last genitive to the first noun. (The genitive's full range is on nouns/genitive-uses.)

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To untangle a legal genitive chain, find the first noun (the head) and read each subsequent genitive as nested inside the previous one — "of the X of the Y of the Z." In left-branching Icelandic each genitive modifies the noun immediately to its left, not the head of the whole chain.

Annotation 4 — the impersonal passive and elided actor

A constitution states rules that bind everyone, so it suppresses the actor. Article 5 does this twice over: skal kjörinn ("shall be elected") is a passive with no agent doing the electing named as a subject — and the doer, when it appears at all, comes in an oblique af-phrase (af þeim er …, "by those who …"). The actor is demoted from grammatical subject to a prepositional afterthought; the rule is the subject. This impersonal stance — letting a duty or a fact stand on its own without a named agent — is the connective tissue of statutory prose.

Forseti skal kjörinn ... af þeim, er kosningarrétt hafa.

The President shall be elected ... by those who have the vote. — the PASSIVE skal kjörinn states the rule with no active subject; the electorate is demoted to an oblique af-phrase. The rule binds; the agent is backgrounded. (Constitution Art. 5)

Greiðslur til forseta skulu ákveðnar með lögum.

Payments to the President shall be determined by law. — impersonal passive skulu ákveðnar ('shall be determined'), no actor named; með lögum ('by law') is the means. A standard constitutional construction. (in the style of the text)

Annotation 5 — samkvæmt + dative, and other frozen connectives

The text's one explicit connective is samkvæmt ("pursuant to, in accordance with"), and it governs the dative: samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari og öðrum landslögum — stjórnarskrá (dat.), þessari (dat.), öðrum landslögum (dat.). This is a fixed, register-marking preposition; alongside it the register keeps a small frozen stock — hér með ("hereby"), samanber / sbr. ("cf."), að því er varðar ("as regards"), uns ("until"). Learn samkvæmt + dative as a unit, because the English instinct to map "of/in accordance with" onto a genitive produces a classic non-native error.

Forseti og önnur stjórnarvöld samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari ... fara með framkvæmdarvaldið.

The President and other governmental authorities, pursuant to this Constitution, ... hold the executive power. — samkvæmt + DATIVE (stjórnarskrá þessari, öðrum landslögum); the heavy compound nominals stjórnarvöld, framkvæmdarvaldið are typical of the register. (Constitution Art. 2)

Samkvæmt lögum þessum er óheimilt að framselja réttindin.

Pursuant to this Act, it is not permitted to assign the rights. — samkvæmt + dative (lögum þessum, postposed); impersonal er óheimilt að ('it is prohibited to'). (formulaic legal)

English vs Icelandic: where legal style diverges

The English legal reader finds much that rhymes: "shall" for obligation lines up with skal/skulu, the passive is heavy in both, and "pursuant to / hereby" answer to samkvæmt / hér með. Two things are genuinely different and are the whole challenge of reading a clause like Article 2. First, word order: English has no postposed demonstrative — there is no "Constitution this" — so stjórnarskrá þessari must be recognised as a deliberate, archaic inversion, not an error. Second, the genitive chain: English builds long nominal strings with of and with stacked attributive nouns, but Icelandic does it with case endings, left-branching, and an English reader's instinct to attach the last word to the first noun mis-parses the chain. Read Icelandic genitive chains strictly left to right, each genitive nested in the one before.

Common Mistakes

❌ (producing a statute) Forsetinn verður að vera kosinn af fólkinu.

Register failure — colloquial verður að ('has to') and the definite, individual forsetinn. A constitution uses the deontic skal and a generic role: Forseti skal kjörinn...

✅ Forseti skal kjörinn beinum, leynilegum kosningum.

The President shall be elected by direct, secret election. — deontic skal, the role-typed bare forseti, the formal kjörinn (not kosinn). (Constitution Art. 5)

Legal obligation is carried by skal/skulu, never the conversational verður að; parties appear as generic roles (forseti, aðili), not as named, definite individuals.

❌ (word order) ...samkvæmt þessari stjórnarskrá og öðrum landslögum...

Register slip — the everyday FRONTED demonstrative þessari stjórnarskrá. The constitution postposes it: stjórnarskrá þessari.

✅ ...samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari og öðrum landslögum...

...pursuant to this Constitution and other statutes... — postposed stjórnarskrá þessari, the legal-register order. (Constitution Art. 2)

In statutory text the demonstrative follows its noun (stjórnarskrá þessari, lög þessi). Fronting it (þessari stjórnarskrá) is everyday Icelandic and reads as out of register.

❌ (case) samkvæmt stjórnarskrárinnar...

Case error — samkvæmt governs the DATIVE (stjórnarskrá / stjórnarskránni), not the genitive stjórnarskrárinnar. The English 'of/in accordance with' tempts a genitive; resist it.

✅ samkvæmt stjórnarskránni / stjórnarskrá þessari.

pursuant to the Constitution / this Constitution — samkvæmt + dative.

Samkvæmt takes the dative. Pairing the genitive-governing instinct of English "of" with samkvæmt — especially amid the document's own genitive chains — is a classic non-native tell.

❌ (parsing) reading 'forseti Íslands' as 'the president, Iceland' (two separate items).

Mis-parse — Íslands is GENITIVE ('of Iceland'), the determinant of forseti. It is one phrase, 'the President of Iceland', not a list of two.

✅ forseti Íslands = 'the President of Iceland' (Íslands gen. modifying forseti).

Correct — the genitive ending on Íslands binds it to forseti as a possessive/specifying genitive. (Constitution Art. 2)

Genitive chains are the chief reading hazard. Take the first noun as head and unwind the genitives left to right; never read a genitive determinant as a separate clause item.

❌ (reading) treating 'skal kjörinn' as 'shall, chosen' (two unrelated words).

Mis-parse — skal kjörinn is 'shall [be] elected', a passive with the copula vera elided. The terse omission of vera is normal in statute; supply it mentally.

✅ skal kjörinn = 'shall be elected' (skal [vera] kjörinn, copula elided).

Correct — the passive participle kjörinn depends on skal; the elided vera is recovered from context. (Constitution Art. 5)

Key Takeaways

A legal clause is a concentrated genitive-and-modality exercise — the most grammatically demanding register, and a real one (this page reads the genuine, public-domain Constitution of Iceland, Act 33/1944, Arts. 1, 2, 5).
Binding obligation rides on skal / skulu ("shall"), stronger and more formal than the everyday verður að / á að; the copula vera is often elided (skal kjörinn = "shall [be] elected").
The register's fastest tell is the postposed demonstrative — stjórnarskrá þessari, lög þessi ("this Constitution / Act"), noun before demonstrative, an archaic survival.
It stacks left-branching genitive chains (forseti Íslands, vernd réttinda borgaranna), which you parse head-first, each genitive nested in the noun to its left; and it uses the impersonal passive with the actor elided or demoted to an af-phrase.
The connective samkvæmt governs the dative (samkvæmt stjórnarskrá þessari); learn it as a unit to avoid the English "of"-genitive error.
English parallels — "shall," the passive, "pursuant to" — all map across; the postposed demonstrative and the case-marked genitive chain have no English counterpart and are the two things to master. See register/legal-administrative for the full theory and nouns/genitive-uses for the genitive.

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