Breakdown of Lykillinn er í skúffu.
vera
to be
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
lykillinn
the key
skúffan
the drawer
Questions & Answers about Lykillinn er í skúffu.
Why is the word for drawer spelled skúffu here instead of its dictionary form skúffa?
The preposition í (in) requires the following noun to be in the dative case when describing a stationary location. For feminine nouns ending in -a like skúffa, the dative form changes the -a to a -u.
How do we know it means 'in a drawer' and not 'in the drawer'?
Icelandic does not use a separate word for 'a' or 'an'. A plain, bare noun like skúffu simply means 'a drawer'. If we wanted to say 'in the drawer', we would add the definite article to the end of the word, making it í skúffunni.
What does the -inn at the end of lykillinn do?
That is the Icelandic way of saying 'the'. The basic dictionary word for 'key' is lykill. Since it is a masculine word, adding the definite article ('the') to the end turns it into lykillinn.
Does í always force the noun into the dative case like it does here?
Not always! Prepositions like í and á take the dative case for a static location (where something rests, like this key). But if a sentence describes movement into a place (like putting a key into a drawer), these same prepositions take the accusative case instead.
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