# Icelandic: samfélag mitt/mitt samfélag/samfélagið mitt



## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

Komið þið öll sæl og blessuð!
Gæti einhver hjálpað mér við eftirfarandi setningu? 
'Hann ætlar að ræða um breytingar í samfélagi mínu.'
Ég veit ekki hvort hún er rétt og hvort hægt er að nota ákveðna greininn í orðasambandinu "samfélagi mínu" og hvort betra er að segja "mitt samfélag" eða "samfélag mitt". Ef báðir þessir valkostir eru réttir, hver er þá munurinn á þeim fyrri og þeim síðari? Samkvæmt nokkrum málfræðibókum sem ég hef lesið er áhersla lögð á eignarfornafn ef það er á undan nafnorðinu en oftast sýnist mér merking nafnorðsins ráða því hvort eignarfornafnið er á undan eða á eftir nafnorðinu.
Þakka ykkur kærlega fyrir!


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## sindridah

Hello.

Rétt er að segja "Hann ætlar að ræða um breytingar í samfélaginu mínu".

I will try my best to explain.

You use *samfélag *when for example : _Samfélag_ er hópur fólks sem býr saman í skipulögðum félagsskap = Community is a group of people...|| because it's just some community, not the icelandic community and neither mine or yours. For example use if you wanna ask wich community?

You use *samfélagið *when for example : Starfsemi Alcan á Íslandi hefur mikla þýðingu fyrir *samfélagið *|| here it is used because it's decidedly community in this example the icelandic community. Also could be your community.

You use *samfélaginu* when for example : Það er allt að gerast í íslenska samfélaginu || when something is happening "in the" community, in this case "everything is happening in the icelandic community"

Here is : samfélagið -mitt- ( w/article - nomantive) || Here is: samfélag (none art.)
About : samfélagið -mitt- || mitt (w/article) - accusative || About: samfélag 
From: samfélaginu -mínu-|| (w/article) - dative ) || From: samfélagi
To: Samfélagsins -míns-(w/article) - genitive ) || To: samfélags

Because possessive pronoun in icelandic is used after the word "community" in english example "community mine" wich ofcourse does not make any sense it makes it hard for me to explain, i apologize.

Hope i did some help atleast, maybe there is an icelandic/english expert here who can define this better.


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## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

Það sem mig langaði mest til að vita var hvort betra væri að segja 'samfélagið mitt', 'samfélag mitt' eða 'mitt samfélag'. Er rétt að segja 'samfélag mitt' í staðinn fyrir 'samfélagið mitt' eða er það alveg rangt? Fer það eftir samhengi eða er alltaf rangt að segja 'samfélag mitt'?
Þakka þér kærlega fyrir svarið!
Eftirskrift: Ef þú finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að leiðrétta hann!


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## Alxmrphi

> Eftirskrift: Ef þú finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að leiðrétta þær!


Would it not be better to say “correct them” (the mistakes – feminine plural) ? Rather than “correct it” (the text) ?
 
Just a though! J


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## sindridah

possessive pronoun comes first when samfélag is used without an article and when article is used for example samfélagið then it comes after

mitt samfélag is correct and samfélagið mitt is correct.

and no alex, Ef þú finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að leiðrétta þær is correct


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## Alxmrphi

> and no alex, Ef þú finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að  leiðrétta þær is correct


Hi Sindri, but he wrote "að leiðrétta hann", I suggested the correction to þær, does that mean I was correct or not? (I'm a little confused because you said "no alex...")
Just checking!


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## sindridah

upz , you wrote *þær*, yes thats correct , villur is a plural and feminine as you mentioned so yes *þær* is correct, sorry didn't notice i was pasting it from you


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## Alxmrphi

Thanks! Good explanation above by the way about the different types, I'm still trying to get my head around it but it's v. helpful


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## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

Þakka þér fyrir leiðréttinguna, Alxmrphi! En ég skil ekki ennþá af hverju það væri ekki hægt að segja bæði "hann" og "þær" í þessu samhengi. Ef maður vísar til textans, þá á maður að segja "hann" en ef maður vísar til villnanna, þá segir maður "þær", er það nokkuð? Á ensku er bæði hægt að segja "they" og "it" í þessu samhengi en ef til vill gildir ekki slíkt hið sama þegar maður talar á íslensku.


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## sindridah

Because the word "villa (plural;villur)" is the subject in this question and textinn would be the object of this sentence. Thats why we use "þær"


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## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

But couldn't you also refer to the object, the word "texti"?
For example:

There are many mistakes in the text so please correct it (the text).
There are many mistakes in the text so please correct them (the mistakes).

This is correct in English but maybe it's wrong in Icelandic.
For example:

Það eru margar villur í textanum. Gerðu svo vel að leiðrétta hann (textann). (???)
Það eru margar villur í textanum. Gerðu svo vel að leiðrétta þær (villurnar).


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Brautry!
I've been thinking about it and I do think it sounds strange in English to say:

If you find any _errors_ in the text can you correct_ it_?

It does work in a sense in English, but if you've pointed out errors, you'd want them to be corrected, there's a bit of a mental "saywhat?" when numbers don't agree so that's how I viewed it, I do suppose it is the same situation in Icelandic but the best thing to say is "they" (mistakes) rather than "it" (the text)...

_There are a load of mistakes in this text. Can I give it to you and you can correct it (the text).
_ 
I think that works (and the equivalent in Icelandic would as well), but the subject is so saliently "villur / errors" in the sentence in question that "þær / them" would be expected.
Your examples you just used, I understand completely, these are a lot closer to the sense where there is an option to pick both, but in a sentence like:

"If you find any mistakes (in the text) please correct it"

The "in the text" is a prepositional phrase (adverbial) that is seen (syntactically) as being additional, rather than core, so for the correct object pronoun to be used at the end of the sentence the most logical / expected choice is one that refers to the main noun used in the phrase, which is plural (villur).

I hope I explained myself well, I don't think I did though.
But what I wanted to point out was, your last option is close to where both would be acceptable, but in the sentence you used earlier, it wasn't as clear to have 2 options as you just pointed out (making one choice seem more fitting than the rest). But writing in a foreign language always plays little tricks because you can't see the sentence flow like if you were fluent, so things don't_ jar _as much..


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## sindridah

Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> But couldn't you also refer to the object, the word "texti"?
> For example:
> 
> There are many mistakes in the text so please correct it (the text).
> There are many mistakes in the text so please correct them (the mistakes).
> 
> This is correct in English but maybe it's wrong in Icelandic.
> For example:
> 
> Það eru margar villur í textanum. Gerðu svo vel að leiðrétta hann (textann). (???)
> Það eru margar villur í textanum. Gerðu svo vel að leiðrétta þær (villurnar).


 
Yess both sentences is correct but as you put it before "*Ef þú* finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að leiðrétta hann" here are you remit to the "villurnar"

If you find any "villur" then you have to put "þær"

Það eru margar villur í textanum.... is another thing


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## Silver_Biscuit

If you think about it in terms of the English examples, then you can see that:

There are errors in this text, so please correct it. is a sentence made up of two independent clauses connected by a conjunction. In this instance the final pronoun could definitely be changed to indicate either the text or the errors.
If you find any errors in the text please correct them. is a sentence made up of two clauses which are dependent on each other because of the conditional 'if'. The 'in the text' is a piece of extra information that is not an integral part of the sentence. It forms a noun phrase (errors in the text) which is still plural, so you must use 'them' as the final pronoun.

Sorry I can't remember all the official terms, it's been a while since A level English Language - I'm sure Alex would be able to put it much better. But essentially I think that is why it is incorrect to say 'Ef þú finnur villur í þessum texta, ekki hika við að leiðrétta hann'.


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## Alxmrphi

SB You’re right!

What comes after að finna / to find is, let’s say X.
X = direct object (phrase)

Að finna [X].
Að finna [villur]
Að finna [villur í textanum]

In the direct object noun phrase [villur í textanum] the head-noun is [villur], and the prepositional phrase [í textanum] qualifies it, so when referring back to it in an if-like phrase (Ef þú finnur…) the pronoun to refer back to it logically needs to concord with the head noun, though using “it / hann” one might understand that it is referring to *texti* but it wouldn’t sound very natural (as confirmed by Sindri).

In “Það eru margar villur í textanum, gæti einhver leiðrétt /þær/hann/” the distinction is, what’s called subject + predicate, with a copula (að vera) separating the two parts, nothing is really “an object of” any other verb, they’re all “on the same level” sort of thing, I hope that makes sense, but when referring back to a sentence like that (referring back to something in the first part) there is more freedom between what you choose to emphasise, which means it’s a lot easier to select þær (villur) or hann (texti) depending on what you want to focus attention on in the sentence, specific corrections or the idea of the text as a whole.

That’s my take on it anyway J


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## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

Thank you all very much for your answers! I don't know very much about proper grammar but from my intuitive sense of correct English I feel that both of the following sentences are correct:
If you find errors in the text, please correct it.
If you find errors in the text, please correct them.
This could be completely wrong or maybe it's a very complex grammatical structure that I just don't understand. Either way, judging from your comments it seems that even though it might be right to say both "it" and "them" in English, in Icelandic it's not correct. This to me is puzzling because I don't understand why these two sentences, that appear to be fairly simple, are right in English but not in Icelandic. Maybe there's a fundamental difference between the two languages in this kind of sentence or it could be that the English sentence with "it" is wrong as well.
Here's some other sentences:
If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her about it (the wardrobe).
Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá honum (fataskápnum).
If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her about it (or: tell her that you have found it).
Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá því (or: segðu henni að þú hafir fundið hana).

The following sentence seems to be correct but it has a completely different meaning both in English and Icelandic:
Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni (frá því) að þú hafir fundið hann (fataskápinn).
lit. If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her (about it) that you have found it (the wardrobe, not the book).

And here is the most challenging sentence I can think of that follows this pattern:
Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni (Siggu) (frá því) að þú hafir fundið hana (Höllu).
lit. If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her (Sigga) (about it) that you have found her (Halla, not the book).

Are these sentences incorrect too? 
If the Icelandic sentences are wrong, does anybody have another possible Icelandic translation of the English sentences that would be considered correct?


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## Alxmrphi

This is a bit like repeating the word “spoon” a 100 times, it loses all meaning and you can’t even believe it is a word anymore, I’ve read & re-read, gone back to and re-examined it and everything is blurry, so I can’t say I’m in the best form to make a quick unbiased / native speaker decision on it but it’s not something that I can see myself saying.

If you’ve mentioned errors in a sentence, and you use the verb correct, I think it’s just the fact that, logic dictates _errors get corrected_, of course it’s correct to say “correct this text if you spot any errors” or something like that, but having _errors _to refer back to, just seems like what should be referred to, even if *it* is used, it jars a bit with me because I know it should refer back to errors, because _errors _get _corrected_.
 
I don’t think there is a difference between English and Icelandic in this respect, they both follow the same pattern, but I can understand the logic of it referring to the text, and if it was rephrased it could work in a few ways and (IMO) be absolutely fine, but in the sentences in question, there’s just such a logical step to take when using a pronoun in this example, it seems strange to not use it. 
 
I know how much thinking about something can affect your normal sense of what is right and what is wrong, maybe that’s just playing up in my head, I’m not sure.
 
Anyway, I’m not sure how those sort of things are referred back to in Icelandic so I will leave that other question to someone better qualified to answer it! But on instinct if það works like* it* in English, referring back to ‘what someone’s said’, then I’d guess *frá því* would be correct.

Bye!


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## Silver_Biscuit

Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> I don't know very much about proper grammar but from my intuitive sense of correct English I feel that both of the following sentences are correct:
> If you find errors in the text, please correct it.
> If you find errors in the text, please correct them.
> This could be completely wrong or maybe it's a very complex grammatical structure that I just don't understand.


 
No, I don't believe that the first sentence is correct English, for the reasons that I gave before, and which Alex then explained very clearly.
It's not massively complex grammar - it's just that, as I understand it, the two nouns in 'errors in the text' are not acting as two 'equal' nouns. They are a noun phrase, which sort of means that they are _acting as_ one word (errorsinthetext) in a grammatical sense. And since that 'word' is plural, you _must_ use a plural pronoun to refer back to those 'errorsinthetext'.
I know it might seem off topic to talk about English grammar, but I think it highly likely that the distinction is the same in Icelandic.

It's worth saying that this is most likely only the case because correct most properly takes the object 'error' over the word 'text'. I think that if you ask someone to correct a text, it is _implied_ that you are asking them to correct the errors. Because why would they correct the bits that were right?
In the sentence 'If there are bits of mould in the water, don't drink it', drink can only refer to the water, so using 'it' is correct. Whereas in the sentence 'If there are any errors in the text, please correct them', correct is referring to both the errors _and_ the text (the 'errorsinthetext'). 



Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> Either way, judging from your comments it seems that even though it might be right to say both "it" and "them" in English, in Icelandic it's not correct. This to me is puzzling because I don't understand why these two sentences, that appear to be fairly simple, are right in English but not in Icelandic. Maybe there's a fundamental difference between the two languages in this kind of sentence or it could be that the English sentence with "it" is wrong as well.


 
All of our comments (from me, Sindri and Alex) are saying that it is incorrect in both English _and_ Icelandic. I will say it again: I doubt that there is any difference between English and Icelandic in this matter.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> And here is the most challenging sentence I can think of that follows this pattern:
> Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni (Siggu) (frá því) að þú hafi fundið hana (Höllu).
> lit. If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her (Sigga) (about it) that you have found her (Halla, not the book).


 
In my opinion this sentence, tied with the meaning you intend to give it, is grammatically absurd, if not strictly incorrect. You have used a conditional clause and then followed it up with a completely unrelated clause. Why would your finding a book in a wardrobe lead to you telling Sigga that you have found Halla? Unless there was more context you could never expect your reader or listener to guess what nouns those pronouns were replacing. Everyone would understand that sentence as 'If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell Halla that you have found the book'. Pronouns only work if it is clear which nouns they are replacing, and they can _only_ replace nouns that have already been introduced (except in the case of dummy pronouns, which in Icelandic is usually því).
If you want to ask someone to tell Halla that they've found the book, if they find it in her wardrobe (which is the only option you could possibly want to say, as far as I can see), I agree with Alex: 'Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá því' looks good, using the dummy pronoun to refer to the event of them finding the book.


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## sindridah

Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> Thank you all very much for your answers! I don't know very much about proper grammar but from my intuitive sense of correct English I feel that both of the following sentences are correct:
> If you find errors in the text, please correct it.
> If you find errors in the text, please correct them.
> This could be completely wrong or maybe it's a very complex grammatical structure that I just don't understand. Either way, judging from your comments it seems that even though it might be right to say both "it" and "them" in English, in Icelandic it's not correct. This to me is puzzling because I don't understand why these two sentences, that appear to be fairly simple, are right in English but not in Icelandic. Maybe there's a fundamental difference between the two languages in this kind of sentence or it could be that the English sentence with "it" is wrong as well.
> Here's some other sentences:
> If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her about it (the wardrobe).
> Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá honum (fataskápnum).
> If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her about it (or: tell her that you have found it).
> Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá því (or: segðu henni að þú hafir fundið hana).
> 
> The following sentence seems to be correct but it has a completely different meaning both in English and Icelandic:
> Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni (frá því) að þú hafir fundið hann (fataskápinn).
> lit. If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her (about it) that you have found it (the wardrobe, not the book).
> 
> And here is the most challenging sentence I can think of that follows this pattern:
> Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni (Siggu) (frá því) að þú hafi fundið hana (Höllu).
> lit. If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell her (Sigga) (about it) that you have found her (Halla, not the book).
> 
> Are these sentences incorrect too?
> If the Icelandic sentences are wrong, does anybody have another possible Icelandic translation of the English sentences that would be considered correct?


 

The icelandic sentences are quite correct but the error is : 
*Ef þú finnur bókina hennar höllu.... *, just the beginning is incorrect.


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## Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham

Silver_Biscuit said:


> In my opinion this sentence, tied with the meaning you intend to give it, is grammatically absurd, if not strictly incorrect. You have used a conditional clause and then followed it up with a completely unrelated clause. Why would your finding a book in a wardrobe lead to you telling Sigga that you have found Halla? Unless there was more context you could never expect your reader or listener to guess what nouns those pronouns were replacing. Everyone would understand that sentence as 'If you find Halla's book in the wardrobe, tell Halla that you have found the book'. Pronouns only work if it is clear which nouns they are replacing, and they can _only_ replace nouns that have already been introduced (except in the case of dummy pronouns, which in Icelandic is usually því).
> If you want to ask someone to tell Halla that they've found the book, if they find it in her wardrobe (which is the only option you could possibly want to say, as far as I can see), I agree with Alex: 'Ef þú finnur bók Höllu í fataskápnum, segðu henni frá því' looks good, using the dummy pronoun to refer to the event of them finding the book.



I don't think this sentence is incorrect grammatically. It just requires a background knowledge that can not be discovered by examining the sentence in isolation. If Sigga didn't know where Halla was and the person the speaker is conversing with knew where she (Halla) was, the finding of Halla's book in the wardrobe would be a signal setting off a chain reaction requiring the person the speaker is talking to to tell Sigga that s/he has found Halla. This is not very complicated.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Brautryðjandinn í Úlfsham said:


> I don't think this sentence is incorrect grammatically. It just requires a background knowledge that can not be discovered by examining the sentence in isolation. If Sigga didn't know where Halla was and the person the speaker is conversing with knew where she (Halla) was, the finding of Halla's book in the wardrobe would be a signal setting off a chain reaction requiring the person the speaker is talking to to tell Sigga that s/he has found Halla. This is not very complicated.


 
I know. I said it wasn't strictly incorrect. I said it was absurd, and I pointed out exactly what you've just said - that pronouns only work if it is clear which nouns they are replacing. I still think that that sentence would be ambiguous at best.


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