Questions & Answers about Maðurinn var skotinn í gær.
Why does the verb end in -inn here?
In Icelandic passive sentences (using vera + past participle), the past participle acts like an adjective and must agree with the subject. Since maðurinn is masculine, singular, and nominative, the past participle of skjóta (to shoot) takes the masculine nominative singular form: skotinn.
The dictionary form of "to shoot" is skjóta. Why does it change to skot- here?
Skjóta is a strong verb, meaning it changes its core vowel to form the past tense and past participle, rather than just adding a regular ending. The stem vowel shifts from jó to o, giving us the past participle skotinn.
Doesn't the phrase skotinn í usually mean something else?
Great catch! The idiom að vera skotinn í means to have a crush on someone. However, context is everything. Because í gær means "yesterday", this sentence is the literal passive voice. If it were Maðurinn var skotinn í henni, it would mean "The man had a crush on her."
Why is there an í before gær?
In Icelandic, many time-related words require a preposition to function as adverbs of time. Í gær is a fixed phrase meaning "yesterday." You will also see this in í dag (today), í kvöld (this evening), and í sumar (this summer).
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