Question 1

Why is ég in the nominative case instead of an object case like mig or mér?

Accepted Answer

This is how nema works when acting as "except". Instead of assigning a specific case like a normal preposition, it makes the following word match the case of the noun or pronoun it is excluding (the antecedent). Here, you are being excluded from enginn, which is the subject of the sentence in the nominative case. Therefore, ég must also be nominative.

Question 2

So even though the English translation says "except me", Icelandic uses the equivalent of "except I"?

Accepted Answer

Exactly! In modern English, "except" usually acts as a preposition taking an object pronoun ("me"). In Icelandic, because nema triggers case-matching, you must use the nominative ég to match the nominative subject enginn. You can think of it as a shortened version of "No one may see it, except I (may see it)."

Question 3

Why is enginn in the masculine form if we don't know the gender of the people being excluded?

Accepted Answer

When referring to an unspecified person or "people in general" (like "no one", "someone", or "anyone"), Icelandic grammatically defaults to the masculine singular form.

Question 4

Just as a refresher, why is there no að before the infinitive sjá?

Accepted Answer

The verb mega (conjugated here as má) is a modal verb meaning "may" or "to be allowed to". Just like in English where we say "may see" rather than "may to see", Icelandic modal verbs take a bare infinitive without the particle að.

Enginn má sjá leynifélagið nema ég.

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