Breakdown of Vinnslan byrjar eftir að borunin klárast.
byrja
to start
eftir að
after (conjunction)
klárast
to finish (run out, be finished)
vinnslan
the processing
borunin
the drilling
Questions & Answers about Vinnslan byrjar eftir að borunin klárast.
The lesson is about the accusative and dative of -un nouns, so why is borunin in the nominative case here?
Because borunin is the subject of its own mini-sentence (a subordinate clause). While the preposition eftir usually forces a noun into the accusative or dative case, eftir að acts as a conjunction that introduces a whole new action. In that new action, borunin is the thing doing the finishing, so it stays in the nominative case.
How would borunin change if we just said "after the drilling" without using að and a verb?
If you drop að and the verb, eftir acts as a preposition taking the dative case. Nouns ending in -un usually take a -u ending in the dative singular, and the feminine dative article is -nni. The word borun would therefore become boruninni, making the phrase eftir boruninni.
Why does the verb klárast have an -st ending?
This is the middle voice of the verb klára (to finish). We use the middle voice here because the drilling isn't finishing an object; the action is just coming to an end. The -st ending is very common in Icelandic when translating English sentences where an inanimate object "finishes" or "opens" on its own.
Both vinnslan and borunin are feminine nouns with "the" attached. Why do their endings look different?
They belong to different noun groups. Vinnsla ends in a vowel, so it just adds -n for the definite article. Borun ends in a consonant, so it needs a linking vowel and adds -in to become borunin.
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