Hefur þú ekki skilað bókaverðinum bókinni ennþá?
Have you not returned the book to the librarian yet?
Breakdown of Hefur þú ekki skilað bókaverðinum bókinni ennþá?
bókin
the book
þú
you
ekki
not
hafa
to have
skila
to hand in
ennþá
yet
bókavörðurinn
the librarian
Questions & Answers about Hefur þú ekki skilað bókaverðinum bókinni ennþá?
Why are both bókaverðinum and bókinni in the dative case here?
The verb skila (to return) is a double dative verb. This means it requires both the recipient (the person you give something back to) and the direct object (the thing being returned) to be in the dative case.
How do we get the form bókaverðinum from the base word for librarian?
The base noun is bókavörður (a masculine compound of bók and vörður). The word vörður (guard or warden) undergoes a vowel shift in the dative case, changing the ö to an e. Add the dative masculine definite article, and you get bókaverðinum.
Is there a specific rule for the order of bókaverðinum and bókinni?
Yes. When an Icelandic verb takes two objects, the recipient (the person receiving the item) almost always comes immediately before the item being transferred, similar to saying 'return the librarian the book' in English.
Could I use enn instead of ennþá for 'yet' at the end of the sentence?
Yes, enn and ennþá are largely interchangeable in this context. Ennþá is simply a slightly more emphatic version that is extremely common in everyday speech.
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