Breakdown of Barnið sofnar strax þegar ég svæfi það.
ég
I
það
it / there (existential) / the one (n)
barnið
the child
strax
right away
þegar
when
sofna
to fall asleep
svæfa
to put somebody to sleep
Questions & Answers about Barnið sofnar strax þegar ég svæfi það.
Why does this sentence use both sofnar and svæfi if they both relate to sleeping?
This sentence perfectly shows the difference between an intransitive verb and a transitive causative verb. Barnið sofnar uses the intransitive verb sofna, meaning the child falls asleep on its own. Ég svæfi það uses the causative verb svæfa, meaning I actively make the child sleep (I put it to sleep).
What case does the transitive verb svæfa take?
Like many causative verbs (verbs that mean making someone do something), svæfa takes an object in the accusative case. Here, the object is það, which is the accusative form of the neuter pronoun, referring back to the child.
Why is the pronoun það used at the end instead of hann or hún for the child?
In Icelandic, pronouns must match the grammatical gender of the noun they replace. Even though a child is a person, the word barn is a neuter noun. Therefore, you must use the neuter pronoun það to refer to it, regardless of the child's actual gender.
I notice sofnar has an "o" but svæfi has an "æ". Is that a common pattern for these verb pairs?
Yes! This is an example of an old sound change called "i-shift" (i-hljóðvarp). When a transitive causative verb is formed from an intransitive one, the root vowel often changes to a front vowel. Here, the "o" in sofna shifts to "æ" to create svæfa. You see the exact same pattern with "a" to "e" in vakna (to wake up) and vekja (to wake someone else up).
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