Breakdown of Sefur kötturinn á sófa?
kötturinn
the cat
sofa
to sleep
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
sófinn
the sofa
Questions & Answers about Sefur kötturinn á sófa?
Why is the word for sofa spelled sófa instead of sófi?
The preposition á (on) describes a fixed location here, which means the noun following it must be in the dative case. For masculine words ending in -i like sófi, the dative ending changes to -a, making it sófa.
How do we know it means 'a sofa' and not 'the sofa'?
Icelandic doesn't have a separate word for 'a' or 'an'. Instead, a bare noun without a definite ending just means 'a [noun]'. If the cat were on the sofa, the definite article would be attached to the end of the word, making it á sófanum.
Why doesn't the sentence use words like 'is' or 'does' to ask the question?
Icelandic doesn't use helper verbs like 'is' or 'does' to ask questions. Instead, you just swap the subject and the verb. Starting the sentence with the verb Sefur (Sleeps) turns 'The cat sleeps' into the question 'Is the cat sleeping?'.
The dictionary form of 'to sleep' is sofa. Why is it sefur here?
Many Icelandic verbs have a vowel change when they are conjugated. For sofa, the o changes to an e for the singular forms (I, you, he/she/it). So 'the cat sleeps' becomes kötturinn sefur.
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