Breakdown of Genið er sjaldgæft, þess vegna er strákurinn ekki bláeygur.
vera
to be
strákurinn
the boy
ekki
not
sjaldgæfur
rare
þess vegna
therefore, that is why
genið
the gene
bláeygur
blue-eyed
Questions & Answers about Genið er sjaldgæft, þess vegna er strákurinn ekki bláeygur.
How exactly is the compound adjective bláeygur built from its root words?
How would bláeygur change if the sentence were about a girl instead of a boy?
Because it acts as an adjective, it must agree in gender with the noun it describes. Since strákurinn is masculine, we use the masculine nominative form bláeygur. If we were talking about a girl (stelpan), it would change to the feminine nominative form bláeyg, dropping the -ur.
Why is the word order ... þess vegna er strákurinn ... rather than ... þess vegna strákurinn er ...?
Icelandic strictly follows the V2 (verb-second) rule. Since the phrase þess vegna (therefore) occupies the first grammatical position in the second clause, the verb er must take the second position, forcing the subject strákurinn to come after it.
What is the literal breakdown of the phrase þess vegna?
It literally means 'because of that'. The word vegna (because of) is a preposition that forces the word associated with it into the genitive case. Þess is the genitive form of the pronoun það (it/that).
Why does the adjective sjaldgæft end in -t here instead of its dictionary form?
It is describing genið (the gene). The root word gen is a neuter noun, so the base adjective sjaldgæfur (rare) must take the neuter nominative singular ending, becoming sjaldgæft.
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