Breakdown of Ég kannast við röddina, en hvað heitir hún? Mig minnir Anna.
ég
I
hún
she
en
but
hvað
what
heita
to be called
mig
me (acc)
Anna
Anna
minna
to seem to remember (impersonal, + accusative)
kannast við
to recognize
röddin
the voice
Questions & Answers about Ég kannast við röddina, en hvað heitir hún? Mig minnir Anna.
Why does this sentence use Mig minnir instead of Ég minni?
When the verb minna is used to mean "to seem to remember" or "to have a vague recollection," it is a "quirky subject" verb. This means the person doing the remembering must be in the accusative case (mig), and the verb stays in the third-person singular form (minnir). If you used the regular nominative subject (ég minni), the verb's meaning would change to "I remind."
Why is the name Anna in the nominative case here rather than the accusative?
This is a very common, natural shortcut in spoken Icelandic! The phrase is actually short for Mig minnir að hún heiti Anna (I seem to remember that she is called Anna). Because names following the verb heita (to be called) are in the nominative case, Anna stays nominative even when the middle of the sentence is left out.
How does the phrase kannast við relate to the verb kanna?
Kanna is an active verb meaning "to investigate" or "to explore." Adding the -st ending turns it into a middle voice verb, kannast. When you pair this middle voice form with the preposition við, the phrase kannast við takes on the specific meaning of "to recognize" or "to be familiar with" something.
In the question hvað heitir hún?, is hún referring to the voice or the person?
It is doing both! Grammatically, hún refers back to röddina (the voice), because rödd is a feminine noun. However, since the speaker is asking for a name, the pronoun smoothly shifts the focus from the voice itself to the woman who is speaking.
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