Questions & Answers about Hvað merkir þetta orð?
What does each word in Hvað merkir þetta orð? mean literally?
Word by word:
- Hvað = what
- merkir = means
- þetta = this
- orð = word
A very literal English rendering would be What means this word?, but the natural English translation is What does this word mean?
Why is there no separate word for does?
Because Icelandic does not use a dummy auxiliary like English do/does in this kind of question.
English needs:
- What does this word mean?
Icelandic simply uses the main verb:
- Hvað merkir þetta orð?
So merkir already carries the present-tense meaning by itself.
What form is merkir?
Merkir is the 3rd person singular present form of the verb að merkja.
That matches þetta orð because this word is singular:
- þetta orð merkir ... = this word means ...
So in the question, merkir is the form you would expect with a singular subject.