Breakdown of Landeigandanum þótti girðingin ljót að ofan, en falleg að neðan.
en
but
fallegur
beautiful
ljótur
ugly
girðingin
the fence
ofan
from above, down from
neðan
from below
þykja
to find (have an opinion)
landeigandinn
the landowner
Questions & Answers about Landeigandanum þótti girðingin ljót að ofan, en falleg að neðan.
The lesson is about ofan and neðan governing the genitive case. Why aren't they followed by a genitive object here?
While ofan and neðan can act as prepositions that take the genitive case (like ofan jarðar for 'above ground'), in this sentence they are acting as directional adverbs. Combined with the preposition að, the phrases að ofan and að neðan mean 'from above' (or 'at the top') and 'from below' (or 'at the bottom'), without needing to govern a noun in the genitive.
Why is Landeigandanum in the dative case instead of the nominative?
Why are the adjectives ljót and falleg in the nominative case if the sentence starts with a dative subject?
Because they describe girðingin (the fence), which is in the nominative case. With verbs like þykja, the object being evaluated acts grammatically like a subject for agreement purposes, so any adjectives must match its gender, number, and case (in this case, feminine, singular, nominative).
Do að ofan and að neðan strictly imply motion 'from' a place?
Not always. In Icelandic, adverbs ending in -an generally indicate motion away from a location. However, phrases like að ofan and að neðan are frequently used to describe a static viewpoint or a specific part of an object, translating naturally to 'at the top' and 'at the bottom' or 'viewed from above' and 'viewed from below'.
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