Word
Guðmóðir hennar þekkir stjúpsystur mína.
Meaning
Her godmother knows my stepsister.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Guðmóðir hennar þekkir stjúpsystur mína.
þekkja
to know
minn
my (m, f, n: minn, mín, mitt)
hennar
her / hers (genitive)
guðmóðirin
the godmother
Questions & Answers about Guðmóðir hennar þekkir stjúpsystur mína.
Why doesn't guðmóðir have the definite article attached to it, like we usually do with possessives?
This is a special rule for family and kinship words! While you usually add the definite article to a noun before a possessive (like bíllinn minn for "my car"), kinship terms like guðmóðir (godmother) and stjúpsystir (stepsister) stay "bare". So it is just guðmóðir hennar, not guðmóðirin hennar.
Why is the word for stepsister written as stjúpsystur instead of stjúpsystir?
The verb þekkja (to know someone) requires the object receiving the action to be in the accusative case. The word stjúpsystir follows the same irregular pattern as systir (sister), which changes to stjúpsystur in the accusative case.
Why is the word for "my" mína here?
Possessive pronouns like minn (my) must match the noun they belong to in gender, number, and case. Since stjúpsystur is feminine, singular, and in the accusative case, the dictionary form minn changes to mína.
Since mína changes to match the noun, why doesn't hennar change to match guðmóðir?