Breakdown of Stráklingurinn vildi strjúka loðna kiðlingnum.
vilja
to want (to will, be willing)
stráklingurinn
the little boy
strjúka
to pet
loðinn
furry
kiðlingurinn
the baby goat
Questions & Answers about Stráklingurinn vildi strjúka loðna kiðlingnum.
How does the suffix -lingur change the meaning of the nouns in this sentence?
In stráklingurinn, the suffix attaches to strákur (boy) to act as a diminutive, meaning a little boy or young lad. In kiðlingnum, it attaches to kið (goat) to denote offspring, meaning a baby goat or kid. This suffix is incredibly productive in Icelandic for both of these purposes.
The word kið (goat) is a neuter noun. Why does kiðlingur take masculine endings?
The suffix -lingur always creates a strong masculine noun, completely overriding the gender of the original root word. So even though kið is neuter, the new derived noun kiðlingur is masculine. You can see this reflected in the dative masculine definite article -num at the end of the word.
Why is the baby goat in the dative case (kiðlingnum)?
The verb strjúka (to stroke or pet) dictates the case of its object, and it requires the dative. Since kiðlingur is a masculine noun, it takes the standard dative ending -i (which drops before the definite article) and the dative definite article -num, resulting in kiðlingnum.
If kiðlingnum is dative masculine, why is the adjective loðna instead of loðnum?
Because the noun is definite (the furry baby goat). When an adjective modifies a noun with a definite article, it must use the weak declension. For a masculine noun in any of the oblique cases (accusative, dative, or genitive), the weak adjective ending is always -a, making it loðna. If it were an indefinite 'furry baby goat', it would use the strong dative masculine ending: loðnum kiðlingi.
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