Questions & Answers about Morgunmaturinn er tilbúinn núna.
Why does morgunmatur turn into morgunmaturinn?
Because Icelandic usually marks the with a definite suffix attached to the noun.
- morgunmatur = breakfast
- morgunmatur-inn = the breakfast (masculine singular nominative)
The ending -inn is basically the definite article fused onto the noun.
What case is morgunmaturinn in here, and how can I tell?
It’s nominative, because it’s the subject of the sentence (the thing that is ready). You can often recognize nominative by how it looks in the dictionary form, and by the fact that the subject of vera (to be) is nominative in ordinary statements:
- Morgunmaturinn er … (Subject + er)
Why is the adjective tilbúinn not tilbúið or tilbúin?
Adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
morgunmaturinn is masculine, singular, nominative, so the adjective takes the matching form:
- masculine: tilbúinn
- feminine would be tilbúin
- neuter would be tilbúið