Hún hrósaði dóttur sinni fyrir skýrt svar, og hrósið gerði hana mjög glaða.

Hrósaði is the 3rd person singular past tense of the verb að hrósa = to praise.

So here:

• hún hrósaði = she praised

A useful thing to remember is that að hrósa is a verb that normally takes a dative object in Icelandic.

Because að hrósa takes the dative, and dóttir changes form outside the nominative.

The dictionary form is:

• dóttir = daughter (nominative singular)

But after hrósa, you need the dative form:

• dóttur

So:

• hún hrósaði dóttur sinni = she praised her daughter

A small extra note: dóttur happens to be the same in several singular cases, so you identify the case here mainly from the verb hrósa.

Sinni is the form of the reflexive possessive sinn. Icelandic uses sinn/sín/sitt when the possessor is the subject of the same clause.

Here, the subject is hún, so:

• dóttur sinni = her own daughter

If you said dóttur hennar, it would more naturally suggest someone else’s daughter, not the subject’s own daughter.

Also, sinni agrees with dóttur in gender, number, and case:

• feminine
• singular
• dative

So sinni is exactly the form you expect here.

Here fyrir means for in the sense of because of / on account of:

• hrósa einhverjum fyrir eitthvað = to praise someone for something

In this pattern, fyrir takes the accusative.

So:

• skýrt svar is accusative singular
• svar is a neuter noun
• skýrt is the adjective agreeing with it

That is why you get:

• fyrir skýrt svar = for a clear answer

Because neuter singular nominative and accusative often look the same, skýrt svar would look identical in either of those cases.

Because it has to agree with svar.

• svar is neuter singular
• the adjective skýr must match it
• the matching form here is skýrt

So:

• skýrt svar = a clear answer

This is a very common Icelandic pattern: adjectives change form to match the noun’s gender, number, and case.

Hrósið means the praise. The ending -ið is the suffixed definite article.

So:

• hrós = praise
• hrósið = the praise

In this sentence, it refers back to the praising already mentioned in the first clause, so the definite form makes sense:

• og hrósið gerði hana mjög glaða = and the praise made her very glad

English uses a separate word (the), but Icelandic usually adds the article onto the noun itself.

This uses the common pattern:

• gera + object + adjective
• to make someone/something + adjective

So here:

• gerði = made
• hana = her
• mjög glaða = very glad

The important point is that glaða agrees with hana, because it describes the object.

Since hana is:

• feminine
• singular
• accusative

the adjective must also be feminine singular accusative:

• glaða

That is why it is glaða, not the nominative form glöð.

Glöð is the nominative feminine singular form.

But after gera, the adjective is describing the object hana, which is in the accusative. So the adjective must also be in the accusative:

• nominative: glöð
• accusative: glaða

So:

• hún er glöð = she is glad
• það gerði hana glaða = that made her glad

This difference is very typical in Icelandic predicate-like adjectives that follow verbs such as gera.

Grammatically, hana just means her and is feminine accusative singular. By itself, it could refer to either female person mentioned earlier.

In this sentence, the most natural interpretation is that hana refers to the daughter:

• the mother praised her daughter
• the praise made the daughter very glad

So the meaning is usually clear from context, even though the pronoun is not completely unambiguous on grammar alone.

Yes. Og hrósið gerði hana mjög glaða is perfectly normal.

The basic order here is:

• subject: hrósið
• verb: gerði
• object: hana
• adverb: mjög
• adjective/complement: glaða

So it follows a straightforward main-clause pattern. Nothing especially unusual is happening there. The main challenge for learners is usually not the word order, but the case forms and the agreement of glaða.