Word by word:
Stelpan
teiknar
augun
mjög
stór
á
blaðið
Icelandic usually adds the definite article as an ending on the noun, instead of using a separate word like English the.
Here, the sentence talks about a specific girl, so the definite form is used. Grammar:
So Stelpan = The girl.
Both forms come from auga (eye), but they differ in definiteness:
In this sentence, the girl is drawing her eyes (a specific set of eyes, her own), so the definite form is natural:
Morphology:
Icelandic distinguishes between:
In this sentence, the subject is Stelpan (the girl), and the eyes belong to that same subject. Icelandic therefore requires the reflexive possessive:
If you said:
this would usually be understood as:
The reflexive possessive sinn must agree with the noun it modifies in:
Here, it modifies augun:
The corresponding form of sinn (reflexive possessive) is:
Relevant part of the declension of sinn in the plural:
So:
stór is an adjective meaning big. Here it appears as:
Important: in this sentence, stór is not directly in front of the noun; it is a predicative adjective (an object complement):
So stór is describing how the eyes are drawn, not what kind of eyes she naturally has.
mjög is an adverb meaning very, and it modifies the adjective:
Grammar chain:
That’s why you get augun sín mjög stór and not, for example, mjög stórt (that would be neuter singular).
You can say:
but the meaning shifts slightly.
Original:
Alternate:
Native speakers will often prefer the original order to clearly express that the drawing makes them big, rather than that her eyes (in reality) are very big.
The dictionary (infinitive) form is:
In the sentence we have:
It agrees with the singular subject Stelpan (the girl).
Present tense paradigm (indicative) for teikna:
So with Stelpan (she), the correct form is teiknar.
There are three things going on here:
Choice of preposition:
Case after á (accusative vs dative):
In Stelpan teiknar … á blaðið, the action is putting the drawing onto the paper, so accusative (blaðið) is used.
Definiteness:
So:
Accusative forms in the sentence:
augun
sín
stór
blaðið
So the accusative is used for: