Breakdown of Við sáum meðal annars gamla kirkju.
gamall
old
við
we
sjá
to see
kirkjan
the church
meðal annars
among other things
Questions & Answers about Við sáum meðal annars gamla kirkju.
Why is the phrase for "among other things" meðal annars?
The preposition meðal (among) requires the following word to be in the genitive case. Annars is the genitive neuter singular form of annað (other). This is a set phrase you will see very often, frequently abbreviated as m.a. in written Icelandic.
Since there is no "the" in this sentence, shouldn't the adjective be strong? Why is it gamla?
It actually is the strong form! It is easy to confuse this because gamla is also the weak feminine nominative form (as in gamla kirkjan). However, here "an old church" is the direct object, so it must be accusative. The strong feminine singular forms for gamall are gömul (nominative), gamla (accusative), gamalli (dative), and gamallar (genitive).
Why does kirkju end in -u here instead of -a?
The verb sjá (to see) takes the accusative case for its direct object. Kirkja (church) is a weak feminine noun, which means it ends in -a in its dictionary form (nominative), but changes to -u in all other singular cases (accusative, dative, and genitive).
What is the base verb for sáum?
It comes from the irregular verb sjá (to see). In the past tense, the stem changes to sá-. Since the subject is við (we), it takes the standard -um ending for the first-person plural, making it sáum.
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