Breakdown of Honum var afhentur gróðinn eftir leikinn.
vera
to be
hann
he
leikurinn
the game
eftir
after / for (waiting for)
afhenda
to deliver
gróðinn
the profit
Questions & Answers about Honum var afhentur gróðinn eftir leikinn.
Why is the participle afhentur in the masculine nominative form, rather than a neutral default like afhent?
This is the core of how ditransitive passive sentences work! When an active verb takes a dative recipient and an accusative object, making it passive turns the recipient into a dative subject (honum) and the object into a nominative object (gróðinn). The past participle (afhentur) must agree in gender, number, and case with this nominative object. Since gróði (profit) is a masculine noun in the nominative case, the participle becomes masculine nominative.
If the sentence were about handing him "the prizes" instead of "the profit", would the auxiliary verb var change?
Yes. In this type of passive construction, the auxiliary verb agrees with the nominative object, not the dative subject. If the object were plural, like verðlaunin (the prizes), the auxiliary verb would become plural: Honum voru afhent verðlaunin. Here, var is singular simply because gróðinn is singular.
Why does the sentence start with the dative Honum instead of the nominative Hann?
The active verb afhenda (to hand over) dictates the cases: it assigns the dative case to the recipient and the accusative to the item. When you turn this into a passive sentence, the original recipient becomes the subject of the sentence, but it stubbornly keeps its dative case. This is a classic example of a "quirky" or oblique subject in Icelandic.
Why is leikinn in the accusative case here? Doesn't the preposition eftir usually take the dative?
Eftir governs different cases depending on its meaning. When it means "after" in a temporal sense (referring to time, like "after the game"), it always takes the accusative case. It usually takes the dative when referring to physical space, such as moving "along" a street or "following/chasing" someone.
Learn Honum var afhentur gróðinn eftir leikinn and more in Icelandic
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free