Breakdown of Vegna deilunnar seldu þeir ekki landið.
ekki
not
þeir
they (m)
selja
to sell
vegna
because of
landið
the land, the country
deilan
the dispute
Questions & Answers about Vegna deilunnar seldu þeir ekki landið.
Why is the word for dispute written as deilunnar here?
The preposition vegna (because of) always forces the following noun into the genitive case, just like the spatial prepositions you are studying in this lesson. The base feminine noun is deila, which becomes deilu in the genitive. When we attach the definite article, it takes the feminine genitive definite ending -nnar, resulting in deilunnar.
Why is the verb seldu placed before the subject þeir?
With the inverted word order, why does ekki come after þeir instead of right after the verb?
When a sentence's word order is inverted because something other than the subject is in the first position, the negation adverb ekki generally goes immediately after a subject pronoun. Putting it right after the verb (seldu ekki þeir) would sound unnatural in Icelandic.
How do we get the past tense form seldu from the infinitive selja?
Selja is a weak verb that drops its -j- in the past tense, which is a common pattern for verbs ending in -ja. It forms the past tense by adding a -d- suffix. The singular past form is seldi (I/he/she/it sold), which takes the plural ending -u to become seldu to agree with the plural subject þeir.
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