# Icelandic: sem á vegi hans verður



## Alxmrphi

Hi all,

There is a line next to a description of Jokey Smurf (Hrekkjastrumpur) which I am having trouble understanding. The description reads:

*Hrekkjastrumpur*
Hann eyðir tímanum í að hrekkja hvern sem á vegi hans verður.
​But I'm not sure what it means. 
I can see "He spends his time planking jokes/pranks on those people who.." but_  á vegi hans verður_ doesn't make sense to me. I can see *verður* means *worthy*, so maybe it means people who he thinks are worthy / deserving of a prank, but I'm really not sure.

Any ideas?


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## sindridah

Where is the Facebook feature? Definitely like! 

But anyway to the explaination, He spends his time pranking everyone which will be at his path, maybe makes sense to you?

Or, He spends his time pranking whom will be in his way, Anyway I think you know where I'm going with this explaination


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## Alxmrphi

Ah yeah, he pranks everyone he comes across is how I think it would be in English.
What's the function of *verður* here? To me it seems as if it would have the same meaning without this word, like "anyone who has his road / is in his way / who he sees".

p.s. also "Like!"


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## sindridah

No, If *verður* is not in the sentence a native speaker would notice that something is missing in the sentence. It's so not my speciality explaining grammar bwhahahha 

*Verður* is regarding to the person who is going to be pranked. The verb "að vera" "to be". 

Does that deduction seem wierd? Because it seems to me!!! AHHHH!


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## Alxmrphi

Ahh so it's like:

.. _to prank those who in his path *will-be*_.
.. to prank those who* will-be* in his path.

Ahh ok, I thought it was the adjective, not the verb form.
Takkkkkkkkkk


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## sindridah

Yeah, Thanks for understanding me


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## Silver_Biscuit

Surely this is the verb *að verða*?


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## Alxmrphi

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Surely this is the verb *að verða*?



Yeah, but it has the meaning of the future of _*to be*_.
I understood it as it was referring to the meaning, not to the actual verb form.

Like in French there is a_ je __étais_ and _je suis_ difference, stemming from two different verb forms but becoming as an identifiable sense in one sole verb form, exactly like the Italian_ io sono_ (I am), and _io sar__ò_ (I will be), it's now part of the same verb paradigm but orginally was two verbs. This is an example of what is going on with _að verða_ and _að vera_ in Modern Icelandic (though at a much earlier stage). So technically yes, but I think it's fair to say there is beginning to be a blur in native-speaker understanding, and probably in the future this might be just thought of (and accepted by all as) a future form of the main verb 'to be'.

Just my thoughts


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## Tazzler

Alxmrphi said:


> Yeah, but it has the meaning of the future of _*to be*_.
> I understood it as it was referring to the meaning, not to the actual verb form.



Yes, it's a tricky verb to translate...


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## Silver_Biscuit

I don't think _að verða_ and _að vera_ are getting mixed up any more than _to be_ and _to become_ are. In this example 'verður' doesn't really mean 'will be' but 'become', which is subtly different I think. "Hann verður" does not mean the same thing as "hann mun vera". Even though it doesn't make sense in English to talk about someone 'becoming' in your path - it's better translated here as "anyone who crosses his path".

_Je suis_ and _j'étais_ are different forms of the same verb. They are both just _être_, are they not? Just French has a future tense verb form, and _être_ is highly irregular. _

Að vera_ and _að verða_ are completely separate verbs, and are highly likely to remain so I should think, since _að verða_ has a whole host of other meanings.


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## hanne

Alxmrphi said:


> Like in French there is a_ je __étais_ and _je suis_ difference


You mean _serai_ (future tense), not _étais_ (past tense), right?


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## Silver_Biscuit

hanne said:


> You mean _serai_ (future tense), not _étais_ (past tense), right?



Erm...  Wow, has it been that long since GCSE French? Didn't notice this at all.

Well, no matter, _j'êtais_, _je serai_ and _je suis_ are still all different forms of the same verb.


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## sindridah

Ok lets try again, Take 2! =  Hey Alex I'm so curious to know what you meant by " but I think it's fair to say there is beginning to be a blur in native-speaker understanding"

EXPLAIN! hehehe


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## Alxmrphi

> I don't think _að verða_ and _að vera_ are getting mixed up any more than _to be_ and _to become_ are. In this example 'verður' doesn't really mean 'will be' but 'become', which is subtly different I think.


Eh? My impression is that it has taken over the role of future tense of *að vera*, in quite a considerable sense. I was quite taken aback when you said you thought of them as different. It made my question an assumption I had made a bit of time ago.

But it's easy to see in glosses all over the place (arguably the verb 'to become' would also be valid in English, but this (to me) isn't an argument that they are separate). I can see how 'to become' and 'to be' are separate in English but even Icelandic (and non-Icelandic) linguists are calling it 'to be' in a literal gloss of the translation.

Some examples are:

1) First page of this study (example 1.b).
2) Page 12 of this study.
3) Page 16 of this study.

Maybe I'm taking it too far to say _verður_ is encroaching on _að vera_, maybe it's better to say an _að-vera-like _meaning is being transferred over to _að verða_. Either way, a concept of 'will-be' being represented as _verður_ is certainly present in some situations in Icelandic, almost to a point where you might have different roots and different verbs.

I was wrong before about my example, which hanne corrected. I did mean those tenses. It's like Italian again, there is an imperfect tense of '_essere_' which is '_stavo_', and this comes from '_stare_'. '_Stare_' in itself, is a completely independent verb from '_essere_', but part of its inflection has jumped over to become the paradigm of the imperfect of '_essere_'. So it doesn't mean that it can't happen because_ að verða_ has a host of all other meanings, it's entirely possible (I am not saying true, but possible), that if this usage is preferred among modern Icelandic speakers, maybe in the next generation _verður_ could be come to be considered as a future form of _vera_.

All I pointed to was, it's conceivable that this *might* (stress 'might') happen in the future. It might not (it is my belief that we're seeing the first stages of this, but this is very debatable and nowhere near provable), but it's happened hundreds of times, the world over, in different languages, and this case seems to mirror those others quite well.

After all, to me this doesn't seem that farfetched:

Henni var kalt
Henni er kalt
Henni verður kalt

I am only suggesting at least in the mind of some speakers, those are 3 tenses of the same verb, maybe not for all people, but I (personally) think not before long, there's a good chance even in the grammar books it'll be explained like that. How long? Impossible to tell. Not too long I don't think. Once you start to see examples where it cannot be another meaning of _verða_, this is a clear indication of usage-change. For example:

Förum á barinn, vinur minn verður þar.
(Let's go to the bar, my friend will be there).

This can't be 'become', or anything else I can see in the list of other meanings, it's really the future form of 'to be'.
Whether we're talking about another verb being (consciously) brought into use here or one inflection jumping over to að vera it's hard to discern, but I'm only saying that I believe there is a blurring going on, and the latter is happening (has happened?).

Interesting discussion anyway


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## Tazzler

So much to read and digest, Alex. 

For me there is a clear difference between "henni var kalt" and "henni varð kalt", the latter referring to the onset of the feeling of coldness. But it seems that this distinction does not hold up when talking about the future; we use "henni verður kalt" for both. Is this what you're saying?


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