Questions & Answers about Ég veit ekki hvort hún kemur í kvöld.
What does each word in Ég veit ekki hvort hún kemur í kvöld literally mean?
Word by word it is:
- Ég – I (1st person singular, nominative)
- veit – know (1st person singular present of vita, to know)
- ekki – not
- hvort – whether / if (introduces an indirect yes/no question)
- hún – she (3rd person singular, nominative)
- kemur – comes / is coming (3rd person singular present of koma, to come)
- í – in
- kvöld – evening, here: tonight / this evening
So the structure is literally: I know not whether she comes tonight.
Why is the word order veit ekki and not ekki veit, like “I not know”?
In Icelandic main clauses, the finite verb normally comes in second position (the so‑called V2 rule).
Here, the finite verb is veit, so it must come right after the subject Ég:
- Ég veit ekki … = I know not …
Putting ekki before the verb (Ég ekki veit …) would break this rule and is ungrammatical in normal word order. The negation ekki typically comes right after the conjugated verb in simple statements.