# Icelandic: Subject verb inversion



## Daniel20

Sæl,

I´ve just been learning how to express intentions, and the thing that threw me was the subject-verb inversion (if I have the right phrase). An example is



> Á mánudaginn, ætlar fór ég í sund.



Do I have this right? If not, why? And if so, what other examples are there? 

Apologies, struggling to get my head around this.

Takk fyrir


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## Alxmrphi

If you think about the sentence that should start with *ég*, what would you originally have? (Just a little thinking exercise that should clarify part of the problem).


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## Silver_Biscuit

You actually don't need the verb _að fara_ at all in this instance, it's fine to just "ætla í sund". But if you did want to use it, it wouldn't be in the past tense (since you're talking about the future after all). You only 'invert' the first verb, as it were - the rest of the sentence is not affected. So think about how the clause would be if you started with ég, and then literally just swap round the first verb and ég.


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## Daniel20

Thanks guys, for some reason I´m struggling with this stuff right now, especially the tenses (that´s the problem with doing it from rote I guess). 

I have another question (hopefully less innocuous this time).

What´s more correct or natural?



> Ætlar þú að fara í vinnunni á morgun?


 eða 





> Ert þú að fara í vinnunni á morgun?


 f.ex.

To me, they´re both saying the same thing, with the second maybe more strong. Does it work though? 

Equally, I´ve noticed that it also seems common to drop the second verb, as SB noted above. F.ex



> Ég ætla að fara á kaffihús


 og 





> Ég ætla á kaffihús



Can these both work or are they missing something?

Takk


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## Segorian

> What´s more correct or natural?
> 
> 
> Ætlar þú að fara í vinnunni á morgun?
> 
> 
> eða
> Ert þú að fara í vinnunni á morgun?
> 
> 
> f.ex.



First, it’s not _fara í vinnunni_ but _fara í vinnuna_. (Accusative to indicate movement; dative to indicate something that happens without movement.)

Second, I disagree with Alxmrphi about the difference between _ætla að fara_ and _vera að fara_. The phrase _ætla (að fara)_ simply corresponds to “going (to go)”. _Ég ætla í bíó_ = “I’m going to the movies”. _Vera að fara_ means the same thing; however, if anyting, it indicates stronger intentionality.


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## Segorian

> The verb _ætla_ spread from its older meaning of intend / plan to intend (to go) / plan (to go) and eventually ended up taking on the meaning of 'go' in some cases.


 I wouldn’t put it like that.  It’s simply the case that this one verb—_að fara—_is optional after _ætla_. In an analogous fashion, ‘to go’ is sometimes optional after ‘going’. For example, the two phrases “I’m going home tomorrow” and “I’m going to go home tomorrow” can be different in meaning in that the latter can be taken to express a stronger intention, but they can also be used to mean exactly the same thing: _Ég ætla (að fara) heim á morgun._


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## Alxmrphi

> I wouldn’t put it like that. It’s simply the case that this one verb—_að fara—_is optional after_ ætla. _In an analogous fashion, ‘to go’ is sometimes optional after ‘going’.


The important distinction is, however, that the two cases aren't _really_ analogous because you're comparing apples and oranges.
"_I'm going home_" isn't using the intentional "going to" while "_I'm going to go home_" is. If it were the case that we could say "_I'm [going to] home_" then it would be analogous but in one language you are just using the base meaning of 'go' and in the other you're dropping the reference to 'go' and having something originally strictly 'intentional' stand in for movement (ætla).

Regarding the first section of my previous comment, you're totally right. I was running through in my mind the situation where one person was saying '_Ertu að vinna á morgun?_" (habitual event that is understood to be regular) and then comparing it with _ætla að fara_ (where, apposition of forms in habitual senses gives more of a sense of intentionality). In any case, modal verb descriptions are in most cases just experienced hunches for non-natives so I probably shouldn't have jumped in so early with a restricted example that is difficult to generalise.


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## Daniel20

Segorian said:


> First, it’s not _fara í vinnunni_ but _fara í vinnuna_. (Accusative to indicate movement; dative to indicate something that happens without movement.)



Apologies for that - not quite at that standard yet to notice those sorts of changes. The book I´m using hasn´t made that distinction yet, so thank you. 



Segorian said:


> I wouldn’t put it like that. It’s simply the case that this one verb—_að fara—_is optional after _ætla_. In an analogous fashion, ‘to go’ is sometimes optional after ‘going’. For example, the two phrases “I’m going home tomorrow” and “I’m going to go home tomorrow” can be different in meaning in that the latter can be taken to express a stronger intention, but they can also be used to mean exactly the same thing: _Ég ætla (að fara) heim á morgun._



That´s a useful analogy and makes sense to me. I do nonetheless agree with Alxmrphi´s sense that they´re not _quite _comparable, even though I see what you´re saying here. That´s a really useful discussion. So would what I said in the OP be correct - that they´re roughly analogous but _vera að fara _is stronger whereas _aetla _is quite weak? And in the case of the use of _ætla _it´s completely fine (and more natural?) to drop the second verb (e.g á morgun ætla ég á kaffihús)?

Thanks guys (especially for such early hours!)

Edit: You raised another question I had in your sentence Segorian _ég ætla í bío = I´m going to the movies. _Now, I´m pretty sure that ShakeyX raised this question a while back so feel free to just link me, but why is the definite article not used here? I get that English might just use it in a different way, but in what circumstances would Icelandic put the definite article here? I completely see why it´s not necessary, though.


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## Alxmrphi

> Edit: You raised another question I had in your sentence Segorian ég ætla í bío = I´m going to the movies. Now, I´m pretty sure that ShakeyX raised this question a while back so feel free to just link me, but why is the definite article not used here? I get that English might just use it in a different way, but in what circumstances would Icelandic put the definite article here? I completely see why it´s not necessary, though.



That's right. English breaks its own general rule by putting an article for something with a general meaning (with the general rule being that you should only use the definite article for previously defined reference). Think of responses to the question "Where are you going tonight?" In some cases you could say "a restaurant" but in others "the cinema." This can easily show you there is something else going on because in both of those cases the answer should logically be the same, an undefined generalised place for a certain purpose. Just for the same reason that we'd say we were going to "a restaurant" the same thing applies in Icelandic with "cinema" because there is logically no real substantive reason we use the definite article. Icelandic kids have to be specifically taught about this quirk when learning English. Here's an example of that.



> 21.    Ákveðinn greinir er iðulega notaður með nokkrum fyrirtækja- og stofnanaheitum, t.d. cinema, theatre, þó að rætt sé um þau í almennri merkingu21.*Dæmi:*- I go to the cinema as often as I can.
> - Do you want to go to the theatre tonight?
> - He is at the office.​


Then in other cases we say 'work' while Icelanders often say 'to the work' like you mentioned in your previous posts 'fara í vinnuna'.
I'm not actually sure if it's even okay to not use the article here. Segorian, what would you say about that? Is 'fara í vinnu' ever acceptable in the same way that English uses 'go to work'. I have a feeling it's not but should use the opportunity here to check with a native. Thanks .


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## Daniel20

Takk kærlega! Never really considered that English quirk before.

Similar to your question re: vinnuna, I do wonder whether it´s acceptable to put kaffihús*ið *etc or whether this would immediately identify you as a native English speaker. This came up in ShakeyX´s post a little while ago where he asked about ´the essay´. The answer from a native (forget whom) was that this construction is not possible - does it carry over to this? Again, another question for Segorian I suspect.


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## Segorian

There are a few things I need to respond to. I would like to start with this example, quoted by Alxmrphi:



> 21. Ákveðinn greinir er iðulega notaður með nokkrum fyrirtækja- og stofnanaheitum, t.d. cinema, theatre, þó að rætt sé um þau í almennri merkingu21.*Dæmi:*- I go to the cinema as often as I can.
> - Do you want to go to the theatre tonight?
> - He is at the office.



First, is seems strange to use the term ‘fyrirtækja- og stofnanaheiti’ for words like cinema, theatre or office. Both _fyrirtækjaheiti_ and _stofnanaheiti_ normally designate the names of companies and/or institutions, not the general words used to describe them.

Second, the last example given—“He is at the office”—differs from the other two because ‘the office’ in question would normally be a specific office (that of the person concerned) and not a generic one. This is what justifies the use of the definite article in this particular sentence. In Icelandic, it’s exactly the same: “Hann er á skrifstofu*nni*.”


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## Segorian

> Then in other cases we say 'work' while Icelanders often say 'to the work' like you mentioned in your previous posts 'fara í vinnuna'.



I think this is down to the fact that one can either see a person as going to work quite generally—in Icelandic this would be _fara til vinnu_, admittedly a relatively formal expression—or as going to a specific place of work—in Icelandic, _fara í vinnuna_. In English, instead of saying *‘go the the work’, one would use the expressions ‘go to the office’, ‘go to the factory’ etc. (which, to be sure, also have equivalents in Icelandic).



> I'm not actually sure if it's even okay to not use the article here. Segorian, what would you say about that? Is 'fara í vinnu' ever acceptable in the same way that English uses 'go to work'.



Yes, _fara í vinnu_ is quite acceptable, although it is normally reserved for more formal contexts, similar to _fara til vinnu_. To be clear, ‘formal’ in these cases means something that you would not normally say in colloquial speech, but would be perfectly acceptable (and possibly even be seen as the preferred expression) in a speech (even a relatively informal one), in a newspaper article, in an obituary, etc.


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## Segorian

> I do wonder whether it´s acceptable to put kaffihús*ið* etc or whether this would immediately identify you as a native English speaker.


 If you were to say _Ég ætla á kaffihúsið_, that would simply mean that you were going to a specific café or restaurant, possibly the one where you work or one that you frequently visit.


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## Daniel20

Makes more sense than English.

Takk fyrir Segorian.


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