Innkaupakarfan er full af eplum.

to be

Breakdown of Innkaupakarfan er full af eplum.

• fullur: full
• af: of
• eplið: the apple

Questions & Answers about Innkaupakarfan er full af eplum.

Why does innkaupakarfa become innkaupakarfan here?

Because Icelandic commonly expresses the with a definite suffix attached to the noun.

• innkaupakarfa = a shopping basket (indefinite)
• innkaupakarfan = the shopping basket (definite)
  The -n (or -inn/-in/-ið) ending changes depending on gender, case, and declension type. Here it’s feminine singular nominative definite, which can surface as -an for this noun’s pattern.

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How do I know innkaupakarfan is feminine, and does that matter?

It matters because gender controls endings on the noun (and agreement on adjectives/pronouns). karfa is a common feminine noun pattern in Icelandic (many nouns ending in -a are feminine, though not all). In this sentence, feminine gender is why the definite ending looks the way it does and why you’d use forms like full (not a feminine form) in the predicate in a specific way (see other questions).

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Why is the word order Innkaupakarfan er full af eplum and not something like Er innkaupakarfan full…?