Breakdown of Barnið faðmar köttinn en kötturinn meiðir barnið.
en
but
barnið
the child
kötturinn
the cat
faðma
to hug
meiða
to hurt
Questions & Answers about Barnið faðmar köttinn en kötturinn meiðir barnið.
Why do we use faðmar and meiðir here instead of their -st forms (faðmast and meiðist)?
This sentence uses the base active verbs because one character is doing the action to another. The child hugs the cat, and the cat hurts the child. If you added -st, the meaning changes completely: faðmast means 'to hug each other' (a reciprocal action), and meiðist means 'gets hurt' (a middle voice form where the one doing the hurting isn't the focus).
Why does the word for 'the cat' change from köttinn to kötturinn?
It changes because its grammatical role flips. In the first half, the cat is receiving the hug (the object), so it takes the accusative form köttinn. In the second half, the cat is doing the action (the subject), so it takes the nominative form kötturinn.
Does barnið (the child) also change its case like the cat does?
Yes, its grammatical role changes, even though the spelling stays exactly the same! The first barnið is the subject (nominative case), and the second barnið is the object receiving the hurt (accusative case). For neuter nouns like barn, the nominative and accusative forms are always identical.
Does the conjunction en (but) affect the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No, en is a coordinating conjunction, which means it simply links two normal sentences together without changing the word order. The second part, kötturinn meiðir barnið, follows the standard Subject-Verb-Object pattern just like the first part.
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