Breakdown of Uppljóstrarinn bar ábyrgð á lekanum.
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
bera
to carry
ábyrgðin
the responsibility
uppljóstrarinn
the whistleblower
lekinn
the leak
Questions & Answers about Uppljóstrarinn bar ábyrgð á lekanum.
Why do we use the verb bar instead of a past tense form of "to be" here?
In Icelandic, you do not "be" responsible, you "bear" or "carry" responsibility. The idiom is bera ábyrgð á (to bear responsibility for). Bar is the past tense of bera for the third person singular.
What case does the preposition á trigger in this specific phrase?
In the phrase bera ábyrgð á, the preposition á governs the dative case. That is why the masculine noun lekinn (the leak) changes to its dative definite form, lekanum.
How is the vocabulary word uppljóstrari constructed?
It is built from the verb að uppljóstra (to reveal or bring to light). Adding the agent suffix -ari turns it into the person doing the action, perfectly creating the Icelandic word for a "whistleblower". In this sentence, the definite article is attached to the end to make it uppljóstrarinn.
How would we change this sentence to say the whistleblower wasn't responsible for "any" leak, using this lesson's grammar?
You would add the negation and use the pronoun neinn, making it Uppljóstrarinn bar ekki ábyrgð á neinum leka. Because á takes the dative case here, the masculine pronoun neinn must change to its dative form neinum. Notice that we also drop the definite article from the noun, changing lekanum to leka.
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