Breakdown of Lögreglan fjarlægði bílinn af götunni.
bíllinn
the car
af
off
gatan
the street
lögreglan
the police
fjarlægja
to remove
Questions & Answers about Lögreglan fjarlægði bílinn af götunni.
Why is lögreglan treated as singular here when 'police' is plural in English?
How is the verb fjarlægði built from smaller Icelandic words?
The infinitive is fjarlægja (to remove). It is formed from the adjective fjarlægur, which means 'distant' or 'far away'. The literal meaning of the verb is 'to make distant', which logically translates to removing something.
Could I use the preposition frá instead of af to mean 'from' the street?
While both prepositions mean 'from', af is the natural choice here because it implies taking something off a surface (the street). Frá is usually reserved for moving away from a specific point of origin, a named place, or a person.
Why does the first vowel in götunni change to 'ö' when the dictionary form is gata?
This is a classic U-shift. The preposition af requires the dative case, and the dative singular of the weak feminine noun gata is götu. This grammatical '-u' ending pulls the root vowel 'a' towards 'ö'. After that shift happens, the dative definite suffix '-nni' is attached to make götunni.
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