Breakdown of Kennarinn hrósaði nemendunum í dag.
kennarinn
the teacher
nemandinn
the student
í dag
today
hrósa
to praise (+ Dative)
Questions & Answers about Kennarinn hrósaði nemendunum í dag.
Why is the word for students in the dative case (nemendunum) instead of the accusative?
In Icelandic, many verbs require their object to be in a specific case. The verb hrósa (to praise) always takes a dative object. That is why we use the dative plural form nemendunum rather than the accusative nemendana.
How exactly is the word nemendunum formed? It looks like it has a double ending.
It is a combination of the plural dative ending and the definite article (the word for "the"). The base noun is nemandi (student). Its dative plural form is nemendum (students). When you attach the definite article for dative plural nouns (-num), the ending becomes -unum, giving you nemendunum (the students).
Why does the verb hrósaði end in -aði?
This is the standard past tense ending for a very common group of regular (weak) verbs. Hrósa belongs to the group where the past tense is formed by adding -aði for the third-person singular (he/she/it).
Why does í dag mean "today" when í usually means "in"?
Icelandic uses the preposition í (in) with certain time words to refer to the current time. Literally translating to "in day," í dag is the standard idiom for "today." Note that in these specific time phrases, the preposition í always takes the noun in the accusative case.
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