Word
Kokkurinn sem eldar matinn er mjög góður.
Meaning
The chef who cooks the food is very good.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about Kokkurinn sem eldar matinn er mjög góður.
Is 'sem' acting as the subject or the object of the relative clause here?
Here, sem acts as the subject! It stands in for kokkurinn (the chef) who is actively doing the cooking. Because it is the subject, the verb eldar (cooks) directly follows it.
Does the word 'sem' change if the chef is female or if there are multiple chefs?
No, and that is the best part about sem! Unlike other pronouns and adjectives in Icelandic, sem never changes its shape. It stays exactly the same no matter the gender, number, or case of the noun it refers back to.
Both 'Kokkurinn' and 'matinn' end in '-inn'. Are they in the same case?
They look similar, but they are actually in different cases. Kokkurinn is the main subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case. Matinn is the object being cooked, so it is in the accusative case. The dictionary form for food is matur, which drops the -ur in the accusative to become mat. When you add the masculine 'the' ending, it becomes matinn.
Why does the sentence end with 'góður' when it comes right after 'matinn'?