Question 1

How can we use the -na suffix from this lesson to say the patient is turning pale?

Accepted Answer

You take the root of the adjective fölur (pale) and add -na to create the inchoative verb fölna (to turn pale). To say the patient is turning pale, you would say Sjúklingurinn fölnar. These -na verbs are always intransitive, meaning they describe a change in state but never take a direct object.

Question 2

Why does the sentence use the definite article in andlitinu instead of a possessive pronoun like his or her face?

Accepted Answer

When referring to body parts, Icelandic strongly prefers using the definite article (the -inu suffix here) rather than possessive pronouns, as long as the owner of the body part is obvious from the context. It sounds much more natural to an Icelander than saying í andliti sínu.

Question 3

Why does the adjective fölur have the masculine -ur ending here?

Accepted Answer

Fölur acts as a subject complement connected by the verb er. It must agree with the subject, sjúklingurinn, which is a masculine noun in the nominative case. Note that the noun sjúklingur is grammatically masculine regardless of the actual biological gender of the patient.

Question 4

What case is andlitinu in, and why?

Accepted Answer

It is in the dative case. The preposition í governs either the accusative for movement and direction, or the dative for a static location. Since the paleness is a state statically located in the face, it takes the dative. The base neuter noun is andlit, becoming andliti in the dative, plus the definite article -nu.

Sjúklingurinn er mjög fölur í andlitinu.

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