Breakdown of Lögreglan fann byssuna í bílnum.
bíllinn
the car
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
finna
to find
lögreglan
the police
Questions & Answers about Lögreglan fann byssuna í bílnum.
Why does the verb fann match a singular subject when "police" is plural in English?
Fann is the past tense of finna (to find), but why doesn't it have a past tense ending?
Finna is a strong verb, meaning it changes its inner vowel in the past tense rather than adding a regular ending. For strong verbs in the first and third person singular (I and he/she/it), there is no ending at all, just the vowel change to fann.
Why does the word for "the gun" take the form byssuna?
The base word is byssa, a feminine noun. Here it is the direct object of the verb fann, so it must be in the accusative case, becoming byssu. To say "the gun", we add the feminine accusative definite article -na to the end, giving us byssuna.
Why is the car (bílnum) in the dative case after the preposition í?
The preposition í can take either the accusative or the dative case. It takes the dative case when it describes a stationary location (where something is), as it does here. If the sentence involved movement into the car, í would take the accusative case instead.