Lífshlaupið — the course of a life

The verbs of a life story

Icelandic tells a life with two reflexive-shaped verbs the corpus hides:

verb	meaning	note
giftast + dat	to get married (to)	pan-gender; kvænast is the old male-only word
eignast + acc	to come to have	children, houses, friends

to get married (+ Dative)giftast completes what you already know: *giftur* is the state, this is the event. to come to have, to acquire (eignast barn)eignast is how Icelandic says *have a child* — **eignast barn** — and equally *get a house*, *make a friend*.

The nouns

Ævin is the whole life (alla ævina — one's whole life long); sálin the soul; kynlífið the sex life — an ordinary B2 topic word, used plainly. Að yfirgefa (+ acc) is to leave someone or something for good — stronger and more final than fara frá.

Note the pattern segja frá ævi sinni — reflexive possessive, because the life belongs to the subject. With árum saman from the last lesson you can now say how long any chapter of it lasted.