Breakdown of Glugginn lokaðist þegar vindurinn byrjaði.
glugginn
the window
byrja
to start
vindurinn
the wind (m)
þegar
when
lokast
to close
Questions & Answers about Glugginn lokaðist þegar vindurinn byrjaði.
Why is lokaðist used here instead of the regular past tense lokaði?
The regular verb loka means "to close" as an action someone does to something else. Adding the -st ending creates the middle voice, which is used here to show a spontaneous action. Glugginn lokaðist means the window closed by itself, without a specific person doing it.
How exactly is lokaðist formed from the base verb?
It is built directly on the active past tense. The active third-person past tense of loka is lokaði. To make it middle voice, you just add -st to the end, giving us lokaðist.
Since the wind starting is also a spontaneous event, why isn't byrjaði in the middle voice?
The verb byrja (to start) can be used as an active verb all by itself to mean something is beginning. Loka, on the other hand, strongly expects an object (someone closes something). To say the window closed on its own, loka needs the -st ending to become spontaneous, but byrja works perfectly well in the active voice.
Because lokaðist acts like a passive verb here, does it change the case of glugginn?
No, glugginn remains in the nominative case as the subject of the sentence. While the window is the "receiver" of the closing action in meaning, grammatically it acts as the normal subject of the middle voice verb lokaðist.
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