Spatial Boundaries: Innan and Utan
When talking about physical boundaries, property lines, or zones, you need precise spatial prepositions. To describe something as being inside or outside a certain limit, Icelandic uses innan (inside/within) and utan (outside of).
Crucially, these prepositions—along with their vertical counterparts—always govern the genitive case. This means the noun phrase immediately following them must take its genitive form.
Notice how the neuter plural noun lóðamörkin (the property lines) becomes lóðamarkanna, and the masculine noun byggingarreiturinn (the building plot) becomes byggingarreitsins:
Vertical Limits: Ofan and Neðan
To describe locations vertically relative to a boundary—above or below a specific line, plot, or layer—you will use ofan (above) and neðan (below).
Just like innan and utan, these prepositions force the following noun into the genitive case.
The Genitive Definite Endings
Since spatial boundaries often refer to specific, known areas (like the fence or the soil), you will frequently use these prepositions with definite nouns. Here is a quick reminder of how the definite article changes in the genitive case:
- Masculine singular typically ends in -ins: jarðvegurinn changes to jarðvegsins, and trjálundurinn changes to trjálundarins.
- Feminine singular typically ends in -innar: girðingin changes to girðingarinnar.
- Plural (all genders) ends in -anna: lóðamörkin changes to lóðamarkanna.
Beyond Space: Vegna
Once you are comfortable using the genitive case for physical boundaries, you will start noticing it triggered by other types of prepositions. For example, the preposition vegna (because of) also strictly governs the genitive case.
Here, the feminine noun deilan (the dispute) takes its genitive form, deilunnar: