Question 1

Why is the past participle leitað in the neuter singular instead of agreeing with the feminine noun taskan?

Accepted Answer

This is the impersonal passive of a prepositional verb. Because leita requires the preposition að to connect to its object (to search for), it can't form a regular passive where the object becomes the subject. Instead, it uses the default neuter singular participle (leitað), and the preposition (að) is left 'stranded' at the end.

Question 2

The phrase leita að normally governs the dative case. Why is taskan in the nominative here?

Accepted Answer

This is due to the 'cleft' sentence structure: Það er [X] sem... (It is [X] that...). The noun taskan gets its case from the first verb, er (is), which always takes the nominative. The preposition að inside the relative clause still 'wants' a dative object, but because the target of the search was moved to the front of the sentence, the preposition is simply left stranded without one.

Question 3

Why is it eigandalausa instead of just eigandalaus?

Accepted Answer

Because the noun it modifies is definite (taskan, indicated by the attached article -an). A definite noun triggers the weak declension of the adjective. For a feminine nominative singular noun, the weak ending is -a.

Question 4

What case is eigandann, and how does this noun decline?

Accepted Answer

It is in the accusative case, acting as the direct object of rekja (to trace). The base word is the weak masculine noun eigandi (owner). Weak masculine nouns ending in -i change to -a in the accusative, dative, and genitive singular cases. Adding the accusative definite article to eiganda gives us eigandann.

Það er eigandalausa taskan sem er leitað að, til að rekja eigandann.

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