Word
Jón er brúneygur og dökkhærður eins og afi minn.
Meaning
Jón is brown-eyed and dark-haired like my grandfather.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Jón er brúneygur og dökkhærður eins og afi minn.
vera
to be
og
and
minn
my
afinn
the grandfather
Questions & Answers about Jón er brúneygur og dökkhærður eins og afi minn.
Why do the root words for 'eye' (auga) and 'hair' (hár) change vowels in brúneygur and dökkhærður?
When forming these compound adjectives, the noun stem usually undergoes i-mutation. This vowel shift changes the au in auga to ey (-eygur) and the á in hár to æ (-hærður).
Is there a rule for why it is -eygur with just a -g- but -hærður with a -ð- before the -ur ending?
The endings depend on the original noun's stem. Nouns like auga (stem aug-) simply attach -ur, making -eygur. But nouns ending in an r, like hár, usually take a dental suffix (-ður, -tur, or -dur) when becoming adjectives, forming -hærður. This is very similar to how English adds '-ed' to make 'hair' into 'haired'.
If we were describing a woman instead of Jón, how would these compound adjectives change?
They decline exactly like regular strong adjectives. To describe a feminine subject in the nominative case, you drop the masculine -ur ending. The sentence would become: María er brúneyg og dökkhærð.
Does eins og always take the nominative case, as seen here with afi minn?