Breakdown of Maðurinn er of gamall til að ættleiða heimilislausan hund.
vera
to be
hundurinn
the dog
gamall
old
maðurinn
the man
að
to (infinitive marker)
til
to
of
too
ættleiða
to adopt
heimilislaus
homeless
Questions & Answers about Maðurinn er of gamall til að ættleiða heimilislausan hund.
The lesson says the structure is of + adjective + til þess að, but this sentence just uses til að. Why?
Both til að and til þess að mean "to" or "in order to" in this context. Dropping þess is very common in everyday Icelandic. Of gamall til að means exactly the same thing as of gamall til þess að.
Does the adjective gamall change depending on who we are talking about?
Yes! Even though it is part of the of ... til að (too ... to) structure, the adjective must still agree with the subject in gender and number. Since maðurinn (the man) is masculine singular, we use gamall. If it were a woman, it would be konan er of gömul.
Why do we say heimilislausan hund instead of heimilislaus hundur?
The verb ættleiða (to adopt) forces the object receiving the action into the accusative case. The base word hundur (dog) is a masculine noun that becomes hund in the accusative. The adjective describing the dog must match, taking the masculine accusative ending -an to become heimilislausan.
The verb ættleiða (to adopt) looks like a compound word. What are its parts?
It is made up of ætt (family or kin) and leiða (to lead). So, to adopt someone or something in Icelandic is literally to "lead them into your family."
How does the base word for homeless, heimilislaus, break down into smaller parts?
It is built from heimili (home), a connecting -s-, and the suffix -laus (-less). The suffix -laus is incredibly useful and works exactly like "-less" in English to show that something is lacking.
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