Breakdown of Barnapían þarf að vekja litla strákinn.
strákurinn
the boy
lítill
small / a little (small amount)
að
to (infinitive marker)
þurfa
to need
Questions & Answers about Barnapían þarf að vekja litla strákinn.
Why do we use vekja here instead of vakna?
Vekja is the transitive verb meaning to wake someone else up, so it needs a direct object. Vakna is intransitive and means to wake up by yourself. Because the babysitter is performing the action on the boy, we must use the causative verb vekja.
Why is litla strákinn in the accusative case?
The verb vekja requires the person being woken up to be in the accusative case. The boy is the direct object of the waking action, so the nominative strákurinn changes to the accusative strákinn.
Why is the adjective litla used instead of the strong masculine accusative form lítinn?
Because the noun it describes, strákinn, is definite. When an adjective comes before a definite noun in Icelandic, it must use the weak declension. The weak masculine accusative form of the adjective lítill is litla.
How does þarf að affect the grammar of the rest of the sentence?
The verb þurfa (to need) acts as an auxiliary verb here, pairing with að and the infinitive vekja. It does not dictate the case of the object at the end of the sentence. The noun phrase litla strákinn gets its accusative case solely from the action verb vekja.