Questions & Answers about Við söknum þeirrar konu mjög mikið.
Why are the words for "that woman" (þeirrar konu) in the genitive case?
The verb sakna (to miss) is one of the special verbs in Icelandic that requires its object to take the genitive case. Whenever you say you miss someone or something, that person or thing must be in the genitive.
Where does the word þeirrar come from?
Þeirrar is the genitive feminine singular form of the demonstrative pronoun sá (that). Because kona is a feminine noun and the verb forces it into the genitive case, sá changes to þeirrar to match.
Could I use the pronoun þessi here if I wanted to say "this" instead of "that"?
Is konu really the genitive form of kona? It looks exactly like the accusative and dative forms.
Yes, it is! Kona is a weak feminine noun. These types of nouns are very predictable in the singular: they end in -a in the nominative case, and change to -u for all three of the other cases (accusative, dative, and genitive).