Questions & Answers about Fingurinn er blár og kaldur.
Why do the adjectives blár and kaldur have those specific endings?
They are matching the gender, number, and case of the noun they describe. Fingur (finger) is a masculine noun in the singular nominative (subject) case. Therefore, the adjectives take standard masculine singular nominative endings: -r for blár and -ur for kaldur.
Since kaldur means "cold", can I use it to say "I am cold"?
Not in the way you might think! You can use kaldur to describe objects or body parts (like fingurinn) that feel physically cold to the touch. But to say "I feel chilly", you must use the phrase mér er kalt (literally "to me is cold"), which puts "me" in the dative case. Saying ég er kaldur makes it sound like you have a cold personality, or that you are physically cold like a corpse!
Fingers usually come in groups. How would I say "The fingers are blue and cold"?
It would be Fingurnir eru bláir og kaldir. The noun fingur is slightly tricky because its plural form is also fingur. To say "the fingers", you add the masculine plural article to get fingurnir. The verb changes to the plural eru, and both adjectives take the masculine plural ending -ir.
Does the -ur in fingur drop when the word changes case, like it does for words like hestur?
For many masculine nouns (like hestur), the -ur is just a nominative grammatical ending that disappears in the accusative case (becoming hest). But for fingur, the -ur is actually part of the root word itself! Because of this, it does not drop off in the accusative case, remaining simply as fingur.
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