Questions & Answers about Brandarinn er mjög fyndinn.
What does the ending -inn in Brandarinn mean, and what is the base form of this word?
The base (dictionary) form is brandari, which means a joke.
The ending -inn is the definite article (“the”) attached to the end of the noun. Icelandic usually puts “the” on the noun as a suffix rather than as a separate word.
So:
- brandari = a joke
- brandarinn = the joke
Grammatically, brandarinn is:
- masculine
- singular
- nominative case
- definite form
That’s why in the sentence it means “the joke”, not just “a joke”.
Why is Brandarinn in the nominative case here?
In Icelandic, the subject of a normal “to be” sentence is in the nominative case.
In this sentence:
- Brandarinn is the subject (“the joke”)
- er is the verb “is”
- mjög fyndinn is the predicate (what we are saying about the subject)
Because “the joke” is the subject, it takes nominative: brandarinn (not, for example, brandarann, which would be accusative).
What does er mean, and are there other forms I should know?