# Icelandic: eintala/sem problem



## ShakeyX

This was sent for kids about road safety and I swear it is incorrect.

Vissir þú að það má aldrei fara á milli bíla sem er lagt við gangstétt og fara svo út á götu?

Okay before I get told that this is perfectly correct and I should accept it  what is the standard rule for sem as a conjunction and following adjectives, to they usually retain it's case.

á milli einhvers sem er rautt

or

á milli einhvers sem er rauðs


Ontop of that back to the sentence, what warrants the use of er lagt when there are plural cars and the case doesn't even match, very confusing.


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## Kadabrium

I agree with you that it should be in plural.
Regarding the case, I believe that in almost any IE language, the case of the relative pronoun depends on its position in the subordinate clause.
So _sem_ here will be nominative because it is the subject of _er lagt við... (_maybe_ eru lagðir við)_


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## Alxmrphi

What case comes after _leggja_ when you mean park?
Think about it.


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## Kadabrium

Alxmrphi said:


> What case comes after _leggja_ when you mean park?
> Think about it.


And here goes the eternal dative passive problem again.
Should it be _bílum er lagt _and then _bílum_ is substituted by _sem_ which is still _sem_ in dative?


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## Alxmrphi

Kadabrium said:


> And here goes the eternal dative passive problem again.
> Should it be _bílum er lagt _and then _bílum_ is substituted by _sem_ which is still _sem_ in dative?


On the right lines with that thinking.
It's easier to view it as it would have been _bílum_ but the preceding _á milli _has a higher precedence of case assignment and thus throws its genitive onto the noun which covers it. _Sem _is just a conjunction that is invariable.
Often the clausal requirements of verbs nested in a sem clause don't have the 'reach' to assign their case to related nouns in the main clause, because of other reasons like case issues higher up in the main clause. Here though, the syntax of the dative passive shows itself in the verb and past participle, but it's cloaked on the noun by a preposition higher up that assigns genitive (á milli).

Isn't Icelandic fascinating?


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## ShakeyX

I am completely confused why are we talking about the case of what sem is.. can sem have case. Can anyone answer my example so I can even begin to get into the realms of dealing with this following prepositions and dative and other such things, i don't even know if it should be rautt or rauðs yet


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## Alxmrphi

ShakeyX said:


> I am completely confused why are we talking about the case of what sem is.. can sem have case. Can anyone answer my example so I can even begin to get into the realms of dealing with this following prepositions and dative and other such things, i don't even know if it should be rautt or rauðs yet


No, _sem_ doesn't take case.
It wouldn't be rauðs because predicate adjectives don't work that way. It'd be the nominative if you have "er + red".
What specific form of nominative we don't know because you didn't include any noun in your example.

If you wanted to say something like "Between the Red Cross and other charities" then it would be genitive '_Rauða krossins_'.


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## Kadabrium

ShakeyX said:


> I am completely confused why are we talking about the case of what sem is.. can sem have case. Can anyone answer my example so I can even begin to get into the realms of dealing with this following prepositions and dative and other such things, i don't even know if it should be rautt or rauðs yet


I tend to see _sem_ as a pronoun which does have case, just with a single form for all of them.
As for a easier example, _á milli einhvers sem er rautt,_ _sem_ is the subject of the subordinate clause and have the nominative case (like you'd say _það er rautt_, and replace _það_ with_ sem,_ so they are both nominative).

Next, let´s look at a similar one: _á milli einhvers sem hann lagði á götuna _here, let´s assume you have used a generic '_einhvers' _and not specifically parking a car, such that it is in accusative. Then you´d mean something like _hann lagði það __á götuna _where_ það_ is accusative. now replace það with sem again, you get the sentence above.

Similarly, assuming you are still using the accusative governing leggja,
_á milli einhverra sem eru lagðir á götuna
_you´d say _þau eru lagðir á __götuna _where þau is nominative plural. so you´d expect sem to be also nom pl.

Returning to the original sentence, 
when you use a dative with leggja, the passive of _hann lagði bílum_ is _bílum er lagt.
_then bílum should be substituted with sem, here as a dative plural. _er lagt_ is unchanged.


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## Alxmrphi

> _þau eru __lögð __á __götuna_


Just little agreement fix.

For the sem thing, I think for English speakers it's easier to conceptualise it as _which/that_.
It's been about 50 years since sem was called a pronoun in Icelandic linguistics. It's viewed as a conjunction (different from which/that in English, but quite close). However it's easiest for anyone to view it, there's no wrong answer. To each their own.


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## Kadabrium

Alxmrphi said:


> It'd be the nominative if you have "er + red".


Isn't it grammatically possible to have _á milli bíla sem rauðum er lagt við...? _(I know everyone with a normal mind should use_á milli bíla rauðra sem er lagt við..., _but is it completely unheard of even in the old language and/or poetry?_)_


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## Alxmrphi

Kadabrium said:


> Isn't it grammatically possible to have _á milli bíla sem rauðum er lagt við...? _(I know everyone with a normal mind should use_á milli bíla rauða sem er lagt við..., _but is it completely unheard of even in the old language and/or poetry?_)_


I'm not sure I get what it's supposed to mean.
Can you elaborate?

In the normal way the adjective would come before the noun (á milli rauðra bíla...).


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## Kadabrium

_bílum rauðum er lagt _
  If you leave _rauðum_ out and only replace _bílum _with _sem_ (or _er_), theoretically you can get _bíla sem rauðum er lagt_, where you have _er_ and a dative adjective, that you said can´t coexist.
  I know normally people would just say _bíla rauðra sem er lagt_, but is the other way completely unattested, even when for example trying to comply with poetic meters?


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## Alxmrphi

I don't think it's possible to make theoretical assumptions based on premises that we don't agree on.
To linguists, _sem_ is just a conjunction (tílvisunartenging) that doesn't hold case and isn't a specific subject.
I don't know why you'd put the adjective after the noun when it would typically go before it.
Yes, in poetic language and in older forms of the languages it could be the other way around, but never in a way that would cross 'sem'. It would be in its designated noun phrase (nafnliður) and _sem_ could never be in between them except if you had a predicative use with the adjective and used stylistic inversion to get_ bílar sem rauðir eru_ but that's not what's going on in _this_ case.

It's an interesting idea but I just don't see how it functionally works. I'd prefer to stay within the opinions of the linguists who study it unless there was some really, really compelling case not to. Once you get _sem _followed by an adjective that is behaving attributively instead of predicatively, I'm sure it just becomes ungrammatical.


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## ShakeyX

Okay, I went to sleep, re-read this. And I can now understand why this is lagt... parking takes dative... bílum er lagt - á milli (bílum) sem er lagt. Oh acutally just during writing this that sprung a question. If the preposition á milli wasn't there (and I can't think of a sentence) but would there ever be a case where a noun is affected by something after the sem... i.e. "það eru bílum sem er lagt" or would it be "það eru bílar sem er lagt"

But yeh besides that I do now understand the sentence.... what I still don't get, and I apologise I know you've probably explained but I read your comments 5-6 times and I still don't know...


á milli einhvers sem er rautt

or

á milli einhvers sem er rauðs


Maybe the example isn't valid, but you understand the concept i'm going for.. i tried to think of more but always come out with something that sounds odd... það er maður sem er hvítur... farðu til hans sem er hvítur/hvíts?

I know again, go to him which is white doesn't really make sense but I'm just asking if case matching is required as you are referencing back to the main clause something which is declined so I would imagine you have to decline everything?


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## Alxmrphi

> If the preposition á milli wasn't there (and I can't think of a sentence) but would there ever be a case where a noun is affected by something after the sem... i.e. "það eru bílum sem er lagt" or would it be "það eru bílar sem er lagt"


Your second example is correct. The thing about sem is it's adding information. In a sense (like I suppose is the case with all relative pronouns in a sense) they are superfluous and it's possible to have a grammatical sentence without them. Generally up in the main clause is where case assignment precedence is higher so there is a higher precedence for _bílar_ to be nominative due to _það eru_ than to take case from something after _sem_ which is a sub-clause with less precedence. I can't think of an example off the top of my head at the moment but the environment of the sentence would be when there isn't another case-issue in the main clause with any strict case requirements, then the case inside the _sem_-clause can 'crawl up' and assign case.

Here is one example I found:


> Hægt er að brúa það bil sem er á hæfileikum umsækjenda og *þess* sem krafist er af þeim þegar þeir taka við starfi
> It's possible to bridge the gap between the candidates' abilities and that which is required of them when they start their role...



You have _bil sem er á + dative_ and instead of því (dative) the genitive requirement of _krefjast _comes up out of the sem-clause and assigns genitive to þess which is up in the main clause. That sort of requirement for dative is looser. I'm not sure how best to explain why because it's just a feeling that develops. I'd say partly because it was conjoined and there already has been a dative noun phrase preceding it and because the meaning and point of it being there is directly because of wanting to say "_that which is required_."

About the last sentence, you'll have to come up with a better way to explain what you mean because it's hard to correct what we both know is a mistake in the first place. Having _vera _and an adjective would break any requirement for case to be preserved anyway. I don't know if that answers your question.


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## ShakeyX

So I guess it's like...

Donna borðaði kökuna - Kakan var ljúffeng - Donna borðaði kökuna, hún var ljúffeng... Donna borðaði kökuna sem var ljúffeng. (EKKI ljúffenga)...

Donna borðaði ljúffenga köku would be okay...

or Donna borðaði ljúffengu kökuna sem var á borðinu

AMIRIGHT OR AMIRGHT ?


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## Alxmrphi

Exactly, that's what I said before, _vera _+ (predicate) adjective brings you back to nominative. 
You've made me hungry now.


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## Kadabrium

Alxmrphi said:


> Hægt er að brúa það bil sem er á hæfileikum umsækjenda og *þess sem krafist er af þeim þegar þeir taka við starfi*


I reserve my opinion on this one. 
If this can be correct, the OP's sentence can become like _á milli rauðs bíls og bíli (_þeas._ öðrum) sem er lagt
_which is very strange.


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## Alxmrphi

Kadabrium said:


> I reserve my opinion on this one.
> If this can be correct, the OP's sentence can become like _á milli rauðs bíls og bíli (_þeas._ öðrum) sem er lagt
> _which is very strange.


What is the reasoning behind the correctness of both of them based on the correctness of one?
This is language, not logic. For all we know, this might only be possible with það without any more information.
It's just not possible to extrapolate rules like that.


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