Breakdown of Maðurinn öskraði af reiði og sársauka.
og
and
maðurinn
the man
öskra
to scream
sársaukinn
the pain (general or emotional)
af
from (out of, cause)
reiðin
the anger
Questions & Answers about Maðurinn öskraði af reiði og sársauka.
Why does the sentence use af when the English translation says "in" anger and pain?
In Icelandic, af (which generally means "off" or "from") is often used to express an underlying cause or an internal state that drives an action. While English phrasing varies between screaming in pain or acting out of anger, Icelandic consistently uses af to show this kind of causal state.
af requires the dative case, but reiði ends in -i. Why doesn't it change?
reiði (anger) is a feminine noun that ends in -i in its dictionary form. A handy rule of Icelandic to remember at this stage is that almost all feminine nouns ending in -i do not change their endings in the singular—they remain exactly the same in the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases.
What about sársauka? What is its dictionary form and why does it end in -a here?
The dictionary form is sársauki (pain). Unlike reiði, sársauki is a weak masculine noun. Weak masculine nouns ending in -i change their ending to -a in the accusative, dative, and genitive cases. Because the conjunction og links it directly to reiði, the preposition af applies to it too, putting it in the dative case.
How do we know öskraði is in the past tense?
The infinitive of this verb is öskra (to scream). It belongs to the most common, regular class of weak verbs (the "-a" group). These verbs form their past tense by adding an -aði suffix for the first and third person singular. So, hann öskrar (he screams) simply becomes hann öskraði (he screamed).
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