Breakdown of Konan er of þreytt til að elda, en annars er hún til í að kaupa fingramatinn.
vera
to be
hún
she
en
but
konan
the woman
þreyttur
tired
kaupa
to buy
að
to (infinitive marker)
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
elda
to cook
til
to
of
too
annars
otherwise
fingramaturinn
the finger food
Questions & Answers about Konan er of þreytt til að elda, en annars er hún til í að kaupa fingramatinn.
There are two phrases with til in this sentence: til að elda and til í að kaupa. Why is í added to the second one?
Til að on its own means "to" or "in order to" when expressing purpose or a result (like being too tired to cook). However, vera til í is a specific idiom meaning "to be up for" or "to be willing to" do something. The preposition í is what triggers this idiomatic meaning of willingness.
The lesson says vera til í is followed by the accusative case. Why don't we see an accusative noun after it here?
In this sentence, the phrase is followed by an action rather than an object, so we use the infinitive marker að plus the verb kaupa (to buy). If she were simply up for the food itself, you would drop the verb and put the accusative noun right after the preposition, like in hún er til í fingramatinn.
What would the sentence mean if I accidentally dropped the í and wrote hún er til að kaupa?
It would sound very strange and wouldn't mean "she is up for buying". Without the í, the verb phrase vera til translates to "to exist". To express willingness, the í is absolutely mandatory.
Look at fingramatinn (the finger food). Why does the first part of the word look like fingra instead of fingur?
Fingramatur is a compound word. The first part is in the genitive plural form of fingur (finger), which is fingra (of the fingers), because finger food involves multiple fingers. The -inn at the end is the attached definite article in the accusative case, required here because it is the direct object of the verb kaupa.
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