Breakdown of En hvað allur hópurinn er hæfileikaríkur.
vera
to be
hvað
what
hópurinn
the group
allur
all / everything / everyone
en hvað
how (in exclamations)
hæfileikaríkur
talented
Questions & Answers about En hvað allur hópurinn er hæfileikaríkur.
If I wanted to start this exclamation with Mikið instead of En hvað, how would the sentence change?
Why does hópur have the definite article attached (hópurinn) after allur?
When allur is used to mean "the whole" or "all of the" about a specific thing, the noun following it must have the definite article. Therefore, hópur (a group) becomes hópurinn (the group) to mean "the whole group".
Usually, words describing a definite noun use the weak declension. Why doesn't allur end in a vowel here?
Because allur is a quantifier (a type of pronoun) rather than a regular adjective, it doesn't follow the normal strong/weak adjective rules. It just matches the noun's gender, number, and case, which here is masculine singular nominative.
How is the word hæfileikaríkur built?
It is a compound word made up of hæfileiki (talent or ability) and the adjective ríkur (rich). So, describing the group as hæfileikaríkur literally means they are "talent-rich"!
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