Breakdown of Landeigandinn fann ruslið utan trjálundarins.
finna
to find
ruslið
the trash
utan
outside of (+ genitive)
trjálundurinn
the tree grove
Questions & Answers about Landeigandinn fann ruslið utan trjálundarins.
Why does the preposition utan force trjálundarins into the genitive case?
In Icelandic, spatial prepositions ending in '-an' such as innan (inside), utan (outside), ofan (above), and neðan (below) govern the genitive case when used on their own.
In everyday speech, I usually hear fyrir utan for 'outside'. Can I use that here?
Yes, you can! However, remember that compound prepositions with fyrir take the accusative case. If you use fyrir utan, the sentence changes to ...fyrir utan trjálundinn. Using just utan with the genitive is perfectly correct but sounds slightly more formal or literary.
How is the compound word trjálundarins formed?
What kind of noun is eigandi in Landeigandinn, and why does it look like a verb?