Breakdown of Það er finnandinn sem er hringt í.
vera
to be
það
it / there (existential) / the one (n)
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
hringja
to call (by phone)
sem
who / which / that
finnandinn
the finder (m)
Questions & Answers about Það er finnandinn sem er hringt í.
Why is the past participle hringt in the neuter singular form instead of agreeing with finnandinn?
Because this is an impersonal passive construction. The verb hringja takes a prepositional object (hringja í einhvern). In the passive, these objects do not become the new subject. Instead, the clause becomes impersonal, meaning the past participle defaults to the neuter singular form (hringt).
What happened to the object that normally follows the preposition í?
It has been moved to the front for emphasis using a cleft sentence structure (Það er finnandinn sem...). In a normal active sentence, you would say Einhver hringir í finnandann. When we make it passive and extract the object to focus on it, the preposition í gets left behind, or stranded, at the very end of the relative clause.
If the finder is the logical object of í, why is finnandinn in the nominative case here rather than the accusative?
This is a structural quirk of cleft sentences. Even though the finder logically belongs with the preposition í (which rules the accusative case), in this exact sentence it acts as the complement of the first verb er (Það er finnandinn). The copula verb vera always triggers the nominative case for its subject and complement.
What kind of noun is finnandinn?
It is a masculine agent noun created from the present participle of finna (to find). Nouns ending in -andi usually describe a person performing an action (like '-er' in English). Here, it simply has the masculine definite article attached (finnandi + -nn).
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