Questions & Answers about Stelpan elskar súkkulaðið.
Since the lesson is about the past tense of Group 1 verbs, how do we change this sentence to say 'The girl loved the chocolate'?
The verb elska is a Group 1 weak verb. To make it past tense for a third-person subject, you take the stem elsk- and add the suffix -aði. The sentence becomes Stelpan elskaði súkkulaðið.
Why do stelpan and súkkulaðið have different endings to mean 'the'?
In Icelandic, 'the' is attached to the end of the noun, and the exact ending depends on the noun's gender. Stelpa (girl) is a feminine noun ending in a vowel, so it takes the feminine suffix -n to become stelpan. Súkkulaði (chocolate) is a neuter noun, so it takes the neuter suffix -ð to become súkkulaðið.
Is súkkulaðið in the accusative case here?
Yes! The verb elskar requires its object to be in the accusative case. However, neuter words like súkkulaði look exactly the same in both the nominative (subject) and accusative (object) cases, which is why the word's spelling doesn't seem to change here.
Why does the verb end in -ar (elskar)?
Elska is the dictionary form, and also the form used for 'I' (ég elska). Because the subject here is stelpan (she), we must use the third-person singular form. For Group 1 verbs in the present tense, this means adding an -r to the stem, giving us elskar.
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