Breakdown of Er mjólkin í skálinni?
vera
to be
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
mjólkin
the milk
skálin
the bowl
Questions & Answers about Er mjólkin í skálinni?
Why is "the bowl" written as skálinni instead of just skál?
Skál means "bowl", but here we need "the bowl". In Icelandic, the word for "the" attaches to the end of the noun. Because the bowl is a stationary location, the preposition í (in) forces the word into the dative case. For feminine nouns in the dative case, the attached ending for "the" is -inni, making it skálinni.
Why does mjólkin end in -in?
Mjólk is a feminine noun meaning "milk". Just like with the bowl, we attach the word for "the" to the end. Since the milk is the main subject of the sentence, it stays in the basic nominative case. The feminine nominative ending for "the" is -in, giving us mjólkin.
Does the preposition í always trigger the dative case?
Not always! When í describes a stationary location (like resting inside a bowl), it triggers the dative case. If it described movement into a place (like pouring milk into a bowl), it would trigger the accusative case instead.
Why does the sentence start with the verb Er?
In Icelandic, to turn a statement into a yes-or-no question, you simply swap the verb and the subject. The statement "The milk is..." would be Mjólkin er..., so the question "Is the milk...?" becomes Er mjólkin...?
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