Breakdown of Ég sé spæjarann hlusta á upptökuna.
ég
I
hlusta
to listen
sjá
to see
á
to/at (with verbs of perception: hlusta á, horfa á)
spæjarinn
the detective
upptakan
the recording
Questions & Answers about Ég sé spæjarann hlusta á upptökuna.
Why is spæjarann in the accusative case, and why is there no að before hlusta?
This sentence uses the Accusative with Infinitive construction. After a perception verb like sjá (to see), the person or thing you see performing an action is put in the accusative case (spæjarann). The action they are doing is expressed with a bare infinitive (hlusta), meaning you must leave out the word að (to).
How does the word spæjari (detective) become spæjarann in this sentence?
Spæjari is a weak masculine noun. Because it is the object of the verb sé, it takes the accusative form, which is spæjara. To say the detective, we add the accusative definite article suffix -nn, giving us spæjarann.
Why is upptökuna (the recording) also in the accusative case?
Its case is controlled by the preposition á. The verb phrase hlusta á (to listen to) always requires the noun that follows it to be in the accusative case. The base feminine noun upptaka becomes upptöku in the accusative, and adding the definite article makes it upptökuna.
Could I rephrase this using a standard að (that) clause?
Yes! Instead of the accusative with infinitive, you could say Ég sé að spæjarinn hlustar á upptökuna (I see that the detective is listening to the recording). Notice that in this version, spæjarinn is in the nominative case because it is the subject of its own clause, and hlustar is conjugated. However, the original sentence's structure is much more natural for directly witnessing an action.
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