Question 1

Why does Í öðru lagi mean "Secondly" and what does lagi actually mean?

Accepted Answer

The phrase literally translates to "in the second layer" or "in the second place." The word lagi is the dative form of the neuter noun lag, which can mean a layer, shape, or position. You can use this exact pattern for other numbers too, such as í fyrsta lagi (firstly) and í þriðja lagi (thirdly).

Question 2

Why is the verb before the subject here (höfum við instead of við höfum)?

Accepted Answer

Icelandic strictly follows the V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the sentence starts with the adverbial phrase Í öðru lagi, the verb höfum must immediately follow it to stay in the second position of the sentence. This pushes the subject við right after the verb.

Question 3

Why is the word for "no" written as engan instead of the dictionary form enginn?

Accepted Answer

The word enginn (no, none) is a pronoun that must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun it describes. Because the noun it describes (tíma) is masculine and in the accusative case, enginn must change to its masculine accusative singular form, which is engan.

Question 4

Is tíma plural here? I thought the word for time was tími.

Accepted Answer

It is actually singular. The noun tími is a "weak" masculine noun, which means it ends in a vowel and changes its ending to an -a in the accusative, dative, and genitive cases. Since the verb höfum (have) takes an accusative object, tími becomes tíma.

Í öðru lagi höfum við engan tíma.

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