# Icelandic: Lent var



## Alxmrphi

Hi all,



> Hvítabjörninn sem var í Hælavík á Ströndum um klukkan níu í morgun var  felldur rúmum fimm tímum síðar af skyttu í þyrlu Landhelgisgæslunnar.  Lent var með hræið af dýrinu á Reykjavíkurflugvelli á sjöunda tímanum í  kvöld þar sem Náttúrufræðistofnun tók við því.


This is taken from an article about the polar bear that arrived on the beach in Hælavík today. I will attempt a translation and point out the part that's giving me trouble:



> A polar bear that was on the beach in Hælavík around nine this morning was killed five hours after being shot at from a helicopter belonging to the Coast Guard. _*Lent *was with the carcass of the animal in Reykjavík airport seventh tímanum this evening where the Institue of National History took it_.


The part in blue I am not sure about, specifically the parts in bold.
Can anyone help me understand what the translation of *lent *should be? 

<thread split, discussion of _á sjöunda tímanum_ is here>

Thanks,
Alx


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## Tazzler

Maybe: "they landed at Reyjavík airport with the carcass of the animal". Since "að lenda" is a dative-governing verb the passive is impersonal. 

Poor bear. I imagine this was hard for you .


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## Alxmrphi

Ah, so "Lent var" is "they landed", or rather, the impersonal.
I don't know why but I had "end up" in my head, when now it's so obviously about landing that I'm surprised I didn't pick up on it. Also lack of subject pronoun which I need to get used to!

I was going to ask how you knew it was hard to see! Then I realised I've had a picture of one for a good few months. Poor bear


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## Tazzler

It's still weird though. "lenda" is an intransitive verb in this case. We can say the following:

1). Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni (the pilot landed the plane, "flugvél" in dative).
2) Flugvélin lenti (the plane landed).

How can "lenda" be put in the passive? I guess it's a modality of expression that's available to Icelandic but not to English and other languages.

And I never answered your second question. Not that I know the answer for sure, but that seems to be the clearest inference from the context.


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## Alxmrphi

> It's still weird though. "lenda" is an intransitive verb in this case. We can say the following:
> 
> 1). Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni (the pilot landed the plane, "flugvél" in dative).
> 2) Flugvélin lenti (the plane landed).


I'm still a little lost, you said it was intransitive but then provided a transitive example in 1), so that's where I am lost a bit. Edit: Ahh, you said in *this case*.

 Also for the second example, if that's the case I thought because the plane is the undergoer of the action of the verb it'd be in the dative case, because that is what governs the undergoer of the action? Oh my god it's been a good few months since Icelandic made me want to pull my hair out, I do not miss this feeling.


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## Gavril

Tazzler said:


> It's still weird though. "lenda" is an intransitive verb in this case. We can say the following:
> 
> 1). Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni (the pilot landed the plane, "flugvél" in dative).



Can _flugvélinni_ be thought of as an instrumental dative in this case ("the pilot landed by means of the plane")?

(PS. -- Where exactly is Hælavík (the original place where the bear was sighted)? Google Maps is of no help in finding it.)


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## NoMoreMrIceGuy

Gavril said:


> Can _flugvélinni_ be thought of as an instrumental dative in this case ("the pilot landed by means of the plane")?
> 
> (PS. -- Where exactly is Hælavík (the original place where the bear was sighted)? Google Maps is of no help in finding it.)



No, it's definitively the airplane that is being landed by the pilot.

Flugvélinni var lent af flugmanninum.
Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni.

It would have to be something like:

Flugmaðurinn lenti fyrir tilstuðlan flugvélarinnar.

But that just sounds really unnatural.

PS. Hælavík is in Hornstrandir which is an area in Vestfirðir.


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## Gavril

(We're getting off the original topic, so I'll request that this be split off into a new thread.)



NoMoreMrIceGuy said:


> No, it's definitively the airplane that is being landed by the pilot.
> 
> Flugvélinni var lent af flugmanninum.
> Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni.



I meant that the original meaning of the dative _vélinni _might have been instrumental ("by means of the plane"), even though speakers don't interpret it that way today.

Since you're in Sweden, do you know how Swedish translates "The pilot landed the plane"? 

I ask because, in Finnish (many of whose expressions have been influenced by Germanic languages, particularly Swedish), this phrase would be translated _Lentäjä laskeutui lentokoneella_, where the word for "airplane" (_lentokone_) is in the instrumental case. The verb _laskeutua_ means "descend" and can be used with the plane or pilot as the subject, just as _lenda _can in Icelandic.


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## Tjahzi

Gavril said:


> Since you're in Sweden, do you know how Swedish translates "The pilot landed the plane"?



_Piloten landade planet.
Planet landades av piloten._

(No rudimentary signs of case usage.)

Do keep in mind that _descend_ and _land_ are different in that _descend_ is intransitive while _land_ can be both intransitive or transitive. As such, it's natural that a verb used with a transitive verb takes a direct object while intransitive verbs allow for more complicated case usage. 

I suggest you examine the Slavic languages, but I honestly doubt they use anything else than accusative, as long as the verb is _to land_, that is.


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## Alxmrphi

> I meant that the original meaning of the dative _vélinni _might have been instrumental ("by means of the plane"), even though speakers don't interpret it that way today.


This is more lexical case than grammatical case.
As is often pointed out in syntax, and is a reason Icelandic is often chosen to give examples, is that it's consistent with the idea that the passive is a movement operation from a corresponding active sentence, and the noun is "assigned" dative case by the verb in the VP and then is shifted to the front, and the act of having dative case in that position is suggested as proof for the operation.

An intransitive verb is more likely to use a sort of instrumental declension to show (as you say) "by means of / with", but when it's a transitive sentence, it's just its normal case showing up in a different position.


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## Gavril

Alxmrphi said:


> This is more lexical case than grammatical case.
> As is often pointed out in syntax, and is a reason Icelandic is often chosen to give examples, is that it's consistent with the idea that the passive is a movement operation from a corresponding active sentence, and the noun is "assigned" dative case by the verb in the VP and then is shifted to the front, and the act of having dative case in that position is suggested as proof for the operation.
> 
> An intransitive verb is more likely to use a sort of instrumental declension to show (as you say) "by means of / with", but when it's a transitive sentence, it's just its normal case showing up in a different position.



It's been so long since I studied syntactic theory that I can't tell whether you agree or disagree with what I said. 

Are you saying that _vélinni_ is the object (rather than the instrument) of the verb _lenda_ because it can be used in a passive construction _Flugvélinni var lent af flugmanninum_, corresponding to the active _Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni_?


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> Are you saying that _vélinni_ is the object (rather than the instrument) of the verb _lenda_ because it can be used in a passive construction _Flugvélinni var lent af flugmanninum_, corresponding to the active _Flugmaðurinn lenti flugvélinni_?



I'm not sure exactly where I stand with syntactic theory, so I can't say it's what I believe or not, but it is what it people in that field argue, seemingly without criticism at the moment.

Whether it is the instrument or not is a thematic subjection, not grammatical (and not directly linked to case, though not exactly completely un-related, difficult to explain but I hope you get what I mean!)

But, yeah that's what I meant, that it's got the dative due to movement rather than any remnant of the dative which implies it's declined as if it was an instrumental nominal expression, but I wasn't saying it was fact, just that others have reported it as fact. I'm still too much a beginner to have made up my mind completely


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