Breakdown of Konan er búin að vera að æla mikið út af ógleðinni.
vera
to be
konan
the woman
mikið
a lot
að
to (infinitive marker)
búinn
finished
út af
because of (+ dative)
ógleðin
the nausea
æla
to vomit
Questions & Answers about Konan er búin að vera að æla mikið út af ógleðinni.
How do we get the meaning "has been vomiting" from er búin að vera að æla?
This is the present perfect continuous structure! It combines vera búinn að (to have done) with the continuous marker vera að (to be doing) and the action verb æla (to vomit). Literally, it looks like "is finished to be to vomit". In Icelandic, this is the standard way to express that someone has been doing an action continuously up to the present moment.
Why is it búin and not búið or búinn?
Because it has to agree with the subject! In this construction, búinn acts like an adjective and must match the gender, number, and case of the subject doing the action. Since konan (the woman) is feminine, singular, and in the nominative case, we use the feminine singular form búin.
Why is ógleðinni in the dative case here?
It is in the dative case because of the prepositional phrase út af (because of / due to). In Icelandic, út af always forces the noun that immediately follows it into the dative case.
What is the base dictionary form of ógleðinni, and how is the definite article attached?
The base noun is ógleði (nausea), which is a feminine noun. The sentence uses the definite form (literally "the nausea") in the dative case. For feminine nouns ending in -i, you just add the definite dative suffix -nni directly to the end of the word, making it ógleðinni.
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