Breakdown of Ílátið hefur fyllst bæði af kolsýru og mikilli froðu.
og
and
af
off
hafa
to have
mikill
great, much (adjective: snjórinn er mikill)
bæði
both (bæði ... og)
ílátið
the container
kolsýran
the carbonation
fyllast
to fill up
froðan
the foam
Questions & Answers about Ílátið hefur fyllst bæði af kolsýru og mikilli froðu.
How is the supine fyllst formed, and why is there no 't' before the 'st'?
The active verb fylla (to fill) has the supine (sagnbót) fyllt. To form the middle voice supine for fyllast (to fill up / become full), you take the active supine fyllt and add the middle voice suffix -st. However, a core Icelandic spelling rule states that a t drops out when followed immediately by -st. Therefore, fyllt + -st becomes fyllst.
Why does the sentence use the preposition af for 'with' instead of með?
In Icelandic, the middle voice verb fyllast (to fill up) pairs as a set phrase with the preposition af to indicate what something is filling up with, rather than með. The preposition af always triggers the dative case, which is why we see the dative forms kolsýru and froðu here.
What dictates the form of the adjective mikilli?
Mikilli means 'much' or 'a lot of' and is modifying the noun froðu (foam). Because the preposition af forces the dative case, the nominative froða (a feminine noun) becomes froðu. The adjective must agree in gender, number, and case, making the feminine dative singular form of mikill into mikilli.
The word bæði can be a neuter plural pronoun. Is it acting as a pronoun here taking a specific case?
No, here bæði is simply part of the fixed correlative conjunction pair bæði ... og (both ... and). When used this way to link two phrases, it acts as an invariable conjunction and does not decline or change case to match the nouns it introduces.
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