Breakdown of Fiskurinn er í skálinni.
vera
to be
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
fiskurinn
the fish
skálin
the bowl
Questions & Answers about Fiskurinn er í skálinni.
Why is "the bowl" translated as skálinni here?
The base word is skál (bowl), a feminine noun. The preposition í (in) forces the following word into the dative case when describing a fixed location. For feminine nouns, the definite ("the") dative ending is -inni, which gives us skálinni.
Does the preposition í always trigger the dative case?
Not always! Prepositions like í (in) and á (on) take the dative case when they describe a stationary location, like the fish just resting inside the bowl. If there were movement towards a destination (for example, if a fish were jumping into the bowl), í would take the accusative case instead.
Why do "the fish" (fiskurinn) and "the bowl" (skálinni) have different endings for "the"?
Icelandic attaches "the" to the end of the word, but the exact ending depends on the noun's gender and its grammatical case. Fiskur is a masculine noun acting as the main subject (nominative case), so it takes the masculine ending -inn. Skál is a feminine noun in the dative case, so it takes the feminine dative ending -inni.
What would the word for "the bowl" be if it were the subject of the sentence?
If "the bowl" were the main subject (in the nominative case), it would just be skálin. The shift to the dative case is what turns it into skálinni.
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