Breakdown of Enginn brýtur eiðinn nema kóngurinn.
brjóta
to break
enginn
no one / nobody / no (m/f)
kóngurinn
the king
nema
except, unless
Questions & Answers about Enginn brýtur eiðinn nema kóngurinn.
Why is kóngurinn in the nominative case here?
When nema means "except", the noun following it doesn't get its case from a preposition. Instead, it matches the case of the noun phrase it refers back to. Here, the king is the exception to the subject Enginn (No one), which is nominative. Therefore, kóngurinn must also be nominative.
What would happen if the exception applied to the object (eiðinn) instead of the subject?
The noun after nema would take the accusative case instead. Because nema links parallel concepts, case-matching ensures we know exactly which part of the sentence the exception applies to. If we said "He breaks nothing except the oath," the exception applies to the accusative object, so the word after nema would also be accusative.
Why does the verb brjóta (to break) become brýtur here?
Brjóta is a strong verb that undergoes a vowel shift in the present tense singular. The root vowels jó shift to ý, making the third-person singular form brýtur to agree with the subject Enginn.
Why is the masculine form enginn used here for a general "no one"?
When acting as a standalone pronoun meaning "no one" or "nobody" (referring to people in general), Icelandic defaults to the masculine singular nominative form enginn.