Breakdown of Húsið brann og varð að ösku.
húsið
the house
og
and
verða
to become; will be
að
to, towards
brenna
to burn
askan
the ash
Questions & Answers about Húsið brann og varð að ösku.
Why does this sentence use varð að instead of just varð to mean 'turned into'?
While verða alone means 'to become' (usually followed by an adjective or a nominative noun, like becoming a doctor), the phrasal verb verða að specifically means 'to turn into' or 'to be reduced to' a completely different material or physical state. The preposition að forces the following noun into the dative case, which is why we see the dative form ösku here.
Why is the past tense of the verb 'to burn' here brann instead of brenndi?
The verb brenna behaves differently depending on whether it takes a direct object. When it is intransitive (the subject itself is on fire, like the house here), it acts as a strong verb with the past tense brann. When it is transitive (someone is setting something on fire), it acts as a weak verb with the past tense brenndi.
What case is ösku, and how does that noun decline?
ösku is in the dative case, required by the preposition að. The dictionary form is aska (ash), which is a weak feminine noun. Weak feminine nouns ending in -a in the nominative change their ending to -u in the accusative, dative, and genitive singular forms.
Is it normal to drop the subject before varð in the second half of the sentence?
Yes. Just like in English, if the subject remains the exact same across a coordinating conjunction like og (and), you can simply omit it in the second clause. You could grammatically say og það varð að ösku, but leaving the pronoun out is perfectly natural and sounds much less repetitive.
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