Breakdown of Voru krossfiskarnir hvergi þegar þið fóruð út?
vera
to be
þið
you (plural)
fara
to go
út
out (motion outwards)
þegar
when
hvergi
nowhere
krossfiskurinn
the starfish
Questions & Answers about Voru krossfiskarnir hvergi þegar þið fóruð út?
The English translation says "nowhere to be found", but what does the Icelandic literally say here?
The Icelandic phrasing is much more direct: literally, "Were the starfish nowhere...?" The adverb hvergi strictly means "nowhere" or "in no place" (static location). While English often adds "to be found" to make the phrasing sound more natural, Icelandic simply links the subject directly to hvergi using the verb vera (to be).
Since the second half of the sentence talks about going somewhere (út), why is the static adverb hvergi used in the first half?
The sentence is split into two clauses that describe different states. The first clause uses the stative verb vera (Voru krossfiskarnir...), which requires a static location adverb like hvergi. The second clause describes motion (fóruð), so it correctly takes the directional adverb út (outwards/outside). If you wanted to describe moving nowhere, you would use a phrase like ekki neitt instead of hvergi.
How does the compound word krossfiskarnir break down?
It is made up of kross (cross) and fiskarnir (the fishes, in the nominative masculine plural definite form). Calling a starfish a "cross-fish" is a fun, highly literal example of descriptive Icelandic vocabulary.
Why does the sentence use þið fóruð instead of just asking a single person?
fóruð is the past tense form that agrees with þið (plural you). The speaker is addressing two or more people when asking when they went out. If they were asking just one person, the sentence would end with þegar þú fórst út.
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