Breakdown of Stjörnufræðingurinn sá loftsteininn fljúga framhjá.
sjá
to see
fljúga
to fly
framhjá
past (moving past something)
stjörnufræðingurinn
the astronomer
loftsteinninn
the asteroid
Questions & Answers about Stjörnufræðingurinn sá loftsteininn fljúga framhjá.
If I wanted to add engu að síður (nevertheless) to the beginning of this sentence, how would it affect the word order?
Starting the sentence with the adverbial connective engu að síður triggers the V2 (verb-second) rule. The verb sá must jump to the second position, right before the subject. It would become: Engu að síður sá stjörnufræðingurinn loftsteininn fljúga framhjá.
Why do we use the bare infinitive fljúga here instead of a conjugated verb or using að fljúga?
Icelandic uses an "accusative with infinitive" construction after verbs of perception like sjá (to see) and heyra (to hear). The object being observed takes the accusative case (loftsteininn), and the action they perform is in the infinitive (fljúga) without the infinitive marker að. This mirrors English grammar almost perfectly ("saw the asteroid fly").
Stjörnufræðingurinn is a long word! How does it break down?
It is a highly logical compound word. It combines stjarna (star) in its genitive form (stjörnu-) and fræði (science/study), followed by the suffix -ingur, which indicates a person of a certain profession or origin. Finally, -inn is the suffixed definite article. Literally, it means "the star-science-person".
Framhjá is often a preposition. Why doesn't it take an object in the dative case here?
In this sentence, framhjá is functioning as an adverb describing the direction of the flying ("past" or "by"), so it stands alone. If it were acting as a preposition, it would need a target in the dative case right after it, such as fljúga framhjá jörðinni (fly past the Earth).
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