Breakdown of Hver og einn eykur fjölbreytileikann í hópnum.
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
hópurinn
the group
auka
to increase
hver og einn
each and every one
fjölbreytileikinn
the diversity
Questions & Answers about Hver og einn eykur fjölbreytileikann í hópnum.
Why is hver og einn masculine here if a group usually contains people of different genders?
When referring to people in a general, unspecified way, Icelandic defaults to the masculine singular form. If you were specifically talking about a group made up entirely of women, you would decline both words to match the feminine: hver og ein.
Does the phrase hver og einn always take a singular verb like eykur?
Yes. Just like "each and every one" in English, the phrase is grammatically singular. Even though it refers to multiple people conceptually, the verb must be in the third-person singular (eykur, not the plural auka).
The verb here is eykur. Why not use the middle voice form eykst?
The active verb auka means "to increase something else" (in this sentence, the diversity is the direct object). You use the middle voice form aukast (which becomes eykst in the third-person singular) when something increases on its own without a direct object, like "Verðið eykst" (The price increases).
How does the noun fjölbreytileiki (diversity) decline to become fjölbreytileikann?
Fjölbreytileiki is a weak masculine noun ending in -i. Because it is the direct object of eykur, it takes the accusative case, dropping the -i and adding -a to become fjölbreytileika. Finally, the accusative masculine definite article -nn is attached, giving us fjölbreytileikann.
Why does í hópnum use the dative case instead of the accusative?
The preposition í governs the dative case when describing a static location or state ("in the group"). If the sentence were describing movement into the group ("into the group"), í would take the accusative case instead, which would be í hópinn.
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