Breakdown of Hver stelpa straujar óhreina skyrtu hvern morgun.
stelpan
the girl
skyrtan
the shirt
morgunninn
the morning
hver
each / every
óhreinn
dirty (unclean, unwashed)
strauja
to iron
Questions & Answers about Hver stelpa straujar óhreina skyrtu hvern morgun.
Why do we use hver at the start of the sentence but hvern at the end?
The word hver changes to match the gender and case of the noun it modifies. Stelpa (girl) is a feminine noun in the nominative case because she is the subject doing the ironing, so we use the feminine nominative hver. Morgun (morning) is a masculine noun in the accusative case, so we use the masculine accusative hvern.
Why is the phrase for every morning in the accusative case (hvern morgun) if it is not the direct object?
In Icelandic, expressions of time that tell us how often something happens are usually put into the accusative case. This is a grammar rule for time phrases, so we use the accusative hvern morgun instead of the nominative hver morgunn.
Why does the adjective óhreina (dirty) end in -a here? Is it the weak form?
It looks like a weak ending, but it is actually the strong form. Because the noun skyrta (shirt) is indefinite here (it is just a dirty shirt, not THE dirty shirt), the adjective must be strong. For a feminine noun in the accusative case, the strong ending for óhreinn is óhreina.
The translation uses each for the girl but every for the morning. Does Icelandic make this distinction?
No, Icelandic does not have separate words for each and every. The pronoun hver covers both meanings perfectly. We just translate it differently in English to make the sentence sound more natural, but you use hver for both concepts.
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