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Ég kveiki á útiljósinu á kvöldin og hún gerir það líka.

Ég kveiki á útiljósinu á kvöldin og hún gerir það líka.
I turn on the outdoor light at night, and she does so too.
From Lesson 480:Replacing verbs (gera það)·Icelandic

Questions & Answers about Ég kveiki á útiljósinu á kvöldin og hún gerir það líka.

How exactly does gerir það work here, and what part of the first clause is it replacing?
Gerir það literally means "does it," acting just like "does so" in English. It replaces the entire active predicate from the first clause: kveikir á útiljósinu á kvöldin (turns on the outside light at night). This prevents you from having to repeat the whole verb phrase.
Why is útiljósinu in the dative case here?
The verb phrase kveikja á (to turn on) always requires its object to be in the dative case. Here, útiljós (outdoor light) gets the dative definite ending -inu because it is a neuter noun.
Why do we use á kvöldin (in the evenings) in the accusative instead of the dative?
When talking about repeated or habitual times, the preposition á takes the accusative case, usually with a plural definite noun. So á kvöldin means "in the evenings" or "at night" as a routine, whereas á kvöldinu (dative) would refer to a specific point during a single evening.
In gerir það, does the pronoun það change depending on the gender of the noun being acted upon?
No, it doesn't. In the pro-verb construction gera það, the word það does not refer back to the specific noun (útiljós), but rather to the entire action of turning it on. Because abstract actions don't have a grammatical gender, Icelandic simply uses the neuter singular pronoun það by default.

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