Questions & Answers about Hluturinn er á borðinu.
Hluturinn is made of:
- hlutur = a thing, an object (indefinite, singular, nominative)
- -inn = the masculine singular definite ending “the”
So hluturinn literally means “the thing / the object”.
Base dictionary form: hlutur (masculine noun).
Icelandic normally does not use a separate word for “the”.
Instead, the definite article is added as an ending:
- masculine: -inn (as in hluturinn – “the thing”)
- neuter dative here: -inu (as in borðinu – “on the table”)
So hluturinn er á borðinu literally looks like:
thing-the is on table-the → “The thing is on the table.”
Because hluturinn is the subject of the verb er, it must be in the nominative case.
For hlutur (singular definite forms):
- Nominative: hluturinn – used for the subject (“the thing” does something)