Breakdown of Stelpunni leið vel í einkasafninu sínu.
stelpan
the girl
vel
well
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
líða
to feel
sinn
his/her/their own (sinn, sína, sitt)
einkasafnið
the private collection
Questions & Answers about Stelpunni leið vel í einkasafninu sínu.
Why do we use the reflexive sínu instead of hennar when the subject Stelpunni is in the dative case?
This is a perfect example of a quirky subject! Even though the verb forces Stelpunni into the dative case, it still acts as the true grammatical subject of the sentence. In Icelandic, these non-nominative subjects still trigger the reflexive pronoun sinn to show ownership of something in the same clause.
Why does the reflexive pronoun take the specific form sínu here?
A possessive pronoun must agree in gender, number, and case with the object being owned, not the owner. Here, it modifies einkasafninu (the private collection), which is a neuter, singular noun in the dative case because it follows the preposition í to show a static location. Therefore, the base word sinn becomes the dative neuter sínu.
As a refresher, why is Stelpunni in the dative case rather than the nominative Stelpan?
The verb líða (to feel a certain way) strictly requires its subject to be in the dative case. This is very common in Icelandic for verbs that express subjective emotions, physical feelings, or states of being.
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