Breakdown of Jón er brúneygur og dökkhærður eins og afi minn.
vera
to be
og
and
minn
my (m, f, n: minn, mín, mitt)
afinn
the grandfather
Jón
Jon
eins og
as / like / as if
brúneygur
brown-eyed
dökkhærður
dark-haired
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?
Not always. The phrase eins og (like/as) doesn't dictate a specific case on its own; instead, it matches the case of whatever is being compared. Because the comparison is with the subject Jón (who is in the nominative case), afi minn is also in the nominative. If Jón were an object in a different sentence, the comparison would match that object's case.
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