Breakdown of Amma sagði mér frá ævi sinni.
ég
I
amman
the grandmother
sinn
his/her/their own (sinn, sína, sitt)
segja frá
to tell about (+ Dative)
ævin
the life, the lifetime
Questions & Answers about Amma sagði mér frá ævi sinni.
Why is sinni used here instead of hennar for "her"?
Because the subject of the sentence, Amma, is the owner of the life being talked about. In Icelandic, you must use the reflexive possessive pronoun (sinn, sín, sitt) when referring back to the subject of the clause. If you used hennar, it would mean Grandma told you about another woman's life.
Why are both ævi and sinni in the dative case?
They are forced into the dative case by the preposition frá (about/from). Because the noun ævi becomes dative, the possessive pronoun sinni must agree with it in case, as well as in gender (feminine) and number (singular).
If ævi is in the dative case here, why does it look exactly the same as its dictionary form?
Ævi is part of a small group of feminine nouns ending in -i that do not change their endings at all in the singular. It remains ævi in the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases.
Why is "me" translated as the dative mér rather than the accusative mig?
The verb segja (to say or tell) takes a dative indirect object for the person receiving the information. The full grammatical pattern being used here is segja einhverjum frá einhverju (to tell someone about something).
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