Questions & Answers about Er ritarinn viðstaddur í dag?
How would I change this into reported speech, like 'He said that the secretary was present today'?
To report this in the past tense, you need to backshift the verb. The present tense er becomes the past tense. Because it's an að (that) clause following a past tense verb like 'He said', Icelandic typically uses the past subjunctive form. So it becomes: Hann sagði að ritarinn væri viðstaddur í dag.
The dictionary word for secretary is ritari. Why does it end in -nn here?
The -nn is the attached definite article, making it 'the secretary' rather than 'a secretary'. Because ritari is a weak masculine noun (meaning it ends in a vowel in the nominative case), it simply adds -nn to become ritarinn.
Would viðstaddur change to the feminine form if we knew the secretary was a woman?
No, because the noun ritari is grammatically masculine, any adjectives describing it must also be masculine, regardless of the person's actual gender. However, if you replaced the noun with the feminine pronoun 'she' (hún), the adjective would change to match it: Er hún viðstödd í dag?
What is the literal breakdown of the word viðstaddur?
It is a compound of við (by/at) and staddur (situated/located). The word staddur is related to the verb standa (to stand). Combined, they mean 'situated at' or 'present'.