Breakdown of Konan var myrt í eldhúsinu.
vera
to be
konan
the woman
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
eldhúsið
the kitchen
myrða
to murder
Questions & Answers about Konan var myrt í eldhúsinu.
Why is the word for 'murdered' spelled myrt instead of myrtur?
In the passive voice (formed with vera plus a past participle), the past participle acts like an adjective and must agree with the subject in gender, number, and case. Because konan (the woman) is feminine, singular, and in the nominative case, the default masculine form myrtur changes to the feminine singular form myrt.
Why is konan in the nominative case here? Doesn't the action happen to her?
Yes, she is the receiver of the action. However, when an active verb that normally takes an accusative object (like myrða) is made passive, that object becomes the subject and changes to the nominative case. If the verb had taken a dative or genitive object in the active voice, the subject would have kept that case in the passive voice.
Why does the preposition í trigger the dative case for eldhúsinu?
The preposition í can govern either the accusative or the dative case. It takes the dative when describing a fixed location (answering 'where?'). If it described movement into the kitchen from the outside (answering 'to where?'), it would take the accusative. Since the event happened statically inside the kitchen, the dative is used here.
How do you break down the endings on eldhúsinu?
The base noun is eldhús (kitchen), which is a neuter noun. In the dative case, it takes an -i ending, becoming eldhúsi. To say 'the kitchen,' you add the neuter dative definite article suffix, which is -nu. Together, they form eldhúsinu.
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