Breakdown of Hver sem er getur mætt fyrirvaralaust.
mæta
to show up
geta
to be able to
hver sem er
anyone / whoever
fyrirvaralaust
spontaneously / without warning
Questions & Answers about Hver sem er getur mætt fyrirvaralaust.
Is hver sem er always in this form, or does it change depending on the sentence?
It changes! The first word, hver, declines depending on its role in the sentence. Here, it is the subject, so it is in the nominative case. If it were the object, it would change to the accusative: hvern sem er. The sem er part stays exactly the same.
Why does hver sem er take the singular verb getur when 'anyone' can refer to many people?
Why is the verb for 'show up' written as mætt instead of the infinitive mæta?
This is a quirk of the auxiliary verb geta (can / to be able to). Unlike most other auxiliary verbs (like vilja or ætla), geta requires the following verb to be in the supine form (sagnbót) rather than the infinitive. Mætt is the supine form of mæta.
How does the word fyrirvaralaust mean 'spontaneously'?
It is a compound word built from fyrirvari (a notice, warning, or reservation) and the suffix -laus (without). The -t at the end turns the adjective into an adverb. So it literally means 'without notice' or 'unannounced,' which perfectly describes doing something spontaneously.
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