# Icelandic: var / að



## Alxmrphi

> Barack Obama Bandaríkjaforseti hefur sáð fræjum haturs og hefnda í múslímaheiminum,
> sagði Osama bin Laden, forsprakki hryðjuverkasamtakanna al-Qaeda, í yfirlýsingu sem *send* var út
> á sjónvarpsstöðinni Al-Jazeera í dag, skömmu eftir *að *Obama kom til Sádí-Arabíu.





> Barack Obama, The American president has sowed seeds of hatred and revenge in the Muslim world,
> said Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, in a statement that was sent out
> on the television channel Al-Jazeera today, shortly after *að* Obama came to Saudi Arabia.​


I just have 3 very little questions
_Ég hef bara þrjár mjög lítlar spurningar_



 Is my translation correct?
Is the '*að*' that follows 'Obama' in the last sentence part of the sentence 'skammur eftir' (come after) ? If not what does it mean?
Ok, last question, why is the word '*send*' there and not '*sendi*', is it a typo? I presume "send var" means "was sent", but as it's the simple past, I don't understand why it's not '*sendi*'


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## thegooseking

You use *send* instead of *sendi* because we're using the past participle. We're saying "that was sent", which is a passive construction. In order to use *sendi*, you would need to have an explicit subject that was doing the sending. (Technically you could say "sem sendi var" if we were talking about a definite masculine noun, since *sendi* also happens to be the weak masculine past participle, but we're talking about an indefinite feminine noun.)

Sorry I'm not really confident enough to help with the other questions.


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## Alxmrphi

> You use *send* instead of *sendi* because we're using the past participle. We're saying "that was sent", which is a passive constructio



Hi gooseking (long time no speak!) -
I thought the past participle of _að senda_ was _sent_.
I also thought it worked like English and used the verb _to have _(a_ð hafa_) when using a past participle.

Could you possibly give me 3/4 sentences where a past participle is used without the verb _to have_?

Takk kaerlega (stupid laptops!)


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## thegooseking

Alxmrphi said:


> Hi gooseking (long time no speak!) -
> I thought the past participle of _að senda_ was _sent_.
> I also thought it worked like English and used the verb _to have _(a_ð hafa_) when using a past participle.
> 
> Could you possibly give me 3/4 sentences where a past participle is used without the verb _to have_?
> 
> Takk kaerlega (stupid laptops!)



The _neuter_ past participle is 'sent'. Remember that the supine is the same as the neuter past participle? What you are thinking of is _hafa_ + supine, which is how to form the perfect tense. The passive voice is formed by _vera_ + past participle. Although _vera_ is sometimes used to form the perfect tense, with the so-called "verbs of movement" (just like using _essere_ instead of _avere_ in Italian, I guess, or _être_ instead of _avoir_ in French), it uses the supine there - which is to say it ignores gender.

To look at some examples:-

I sent a letter. - Ég *sendi* bréf.
I have sent a letter. - Ég hefi *sent* bréf.
I have been sent to get bread. - Ég hefi verið *sendur* eftir brauði.

I use *sendi *in the first example because it's simple past. In the second example, it's the perfect tense, so I use the neuter (supine) *sent*, because it describes something that I have done. Just to be clear: using the neuter here has nothing to do with bréf being a neuter noun, and is just because that's what you use in the perfect tense.

The third example is passive: I use the masculine *sendur*, because it describes something done _to_ me, and I am male - in this way it functions more like an adjective. Note that *vera*, however, is neuter (supine) here, because this is still the perfect tense. *Edit:* disregard that, _vera_ has a supine, which we're using, but it doesn't have a past participle, so talking about using the neuter past participle is meaningless.

I think for passive constructions you usually use the past participle, but sometimes use the middle voice. For example, "I was tired" (which is something that has happened _to_ me and is therefore passive) could be "ég var *þreyttur*" (past participle) or "ég *þreyttist*" (middle voice). I'm not really sure what the difference is. I _think_, in this example, we use "ég var þreyttur" to simply express having been tired, and "ég þreyttist (á einhverju)" to mean having been tired _of something_, but I'm not entirely sure.

The main thing to remember is that the Icelandic for 'participle' is *lýsingarháttur* ("description mood"). Basically what this is saying is that this is the form of the verb that functions as an adjective (*lýsingarorð*). This is why we use the supine in the perfect tense - although it _looks_ the same as the neuter past participle, it doesn't function as an adjective, so it's not technically right to call it a past participle. We do a similar thing in English: the _-ing_ form of verbs is either called the 'present participle' or the 'gerund' depending on whether or not it's functioning as an adjective a noun.

*Edit:* To try and clarify, consider this:-
(active) The chicken has eaten. - Hænan hefur borðað.
(passive) The chicken was eaten. - Hænan var borðuð.

In English, in both cases, 'eaten' is the past participle. But in Icelandic, *borðað* is the supine, while *borðuð* is the feminine past participle. Note that even though hænan is feminine, the supine remains the same as the neuter past participle - this is because it's not _actually_ a past participle, even though it's translating an English past participle.

A word of warning about the supine, if you want to go and investigate it further: the supine in Icelandic behaves about the same as the supine in Swedish, but is a totally different concept to the supine in English or Latin or any other language that has a verb form called 'supine'.

Hope I haven't overcomplicated that.


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## Alxmrphi

I read your response this morning but I'm glad I waited before responding (I got to read your helpful edit to clarify some of my questions)

I wasn't aware that the past participle had different forms (I'm trying to wean myself into grammar after building a vocabulary) but from what you wrote it seems (like English) the form of the supine is like the adjective..

For example..

_I was given
I was sent
They were tricked
_
Obviously here these are past participles, but also the same forms as adjectives (for some reason I see logic to associate them with adjectives, but I know they are past participles)..

So I am trying to underline my confusion here a bit.
Would it be fair to say when forming the passive in Icelandic, the supine behaves like an adjective and agrees and goes through all of its different declensions.
When you said _'feminine past participle'_ it threw me a bit, but if I think of it as an adjective, then it becomes a familiar concept.

That makes sense to me so far, but I was reading about the Icelandic passive a few weeks ago and saw this here:



> *Page 1* *The new passive in Icelandic: variation and diachrony*
> The ‘new *passive*’ in *Icelandic* contains an auxiliary _vera _‘be’ and a non-agreeing
> past participle which is able to assign accusative case to an argument in postverbal
> position. In the absence of another element in clause-initial position, the placeholder
> _það _‘it’ is inserted before the finite verb



I noticed it said 'new passive' - would that mean that the one you mentioned has been the traditional passive, and this article is relating to a new passive that uses a past participle.

Despite this confusion I want to try some things and maybe see if they are correct:

1) Maturinn var borðað
2) Músin var borðuð
3) Vatnið var drukkið
4) Eplin voru borðuð

?

Do you know how an agent is expressed in Icelandic? I can't seem to find an answer?

Thanks!


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## thegooseking

Alxmrphi said:


> So I am trying to underline my confusion here a bit.
> Would it be fair to say when forming the passive in Icelandic, the supine behaves like an adjective and agrees and goes through all of its different declensions.
> When you said _'feminine past participle'_ it threw me a bit, but if I think of it as an adjective, then it becomes a familiar concept.



Not the supine, the past participle. But otherwise, yes. When you go here, towards the bottom of a verb entry you see *Sagnbót* and *Lýsingarháttar þátíðar*. Sagnbót is the supine, and lýsingarháttar þátíðar is the past participle. So you can see that the past participle agrees in gender, number and case as well as having strong and weak inflections, just like an adjective, whereas the supine doesn't change at all.



> I noticed it said 'new passive' - would that mean that the one you mentioned has been the traditional passive, and this article is relating to a new passive that uses a past participle.



Yes, the new passive. I've heard of this, but when I asked my girlfriend about it, she just said it was 'wrong'  I think it's a phenomenon of mainly young people, and only young people from certain backgrounds. There may be a class thing going on there. I think it's a lot harder (especially for learners like us) to form the new passive than it is to understand it, and I don't think you're going to go too wrong if you only use the traditional passive (also called the canonical passive).

1) Maturinn var borðað
Maturinn var borðaður - _matur_ is masculine.

 2) Músin var borðuð
3) Vatnið var drukkið
4) Eplin voru borðuð

These three are correct.



> Do you know how an agent is expressed in Icelandic? I can't seem to find an answer?
> 
> Thanks!



I'm not sure what you mean by an agent. I would have guessed that an agent is just the same thing as a subject?


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## Alxmrphi

Hi GK... can't believe I mixed that up (1))
I use that site you linked ALL THE TIME (without that site I would have given up Icelandic months ago!)

I mixed up the supine with the past participle, all the complicated linguistic terminology is a bit confusing at times!
The thing is, we (to me) are basically talking about the same thing, but depending on its role it would be called a different thing.... I know linguists could rip apart the sentence I've just said but anyone _of a mind of a learner_ would (hopefully) understand me.

I'm happy to hear an Icelander's POV on the new passive, and I will happily stick to the old traditional one, but I'm also glad I'm aware of this new usage

By 'agent' I meant the performer of actions in passive constructions, I'm studying English (to teach it) and I have a tendency to use different terminology sometimes..

The mouse was eaten *by *the cat..
The water was blessed *by* the priest
The explanation was given *by* thegooseking..

The "agent" is the performer of the action (expressed by '_by_')
How would this be expressed in Icelandic?

Thanks for your insight!!


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## thegooseking

I see. Well, I didn't know, but looking it up in the dictionary (sense 4), it seems that expressing an agent is structured exactly as you would expect, using the word *af* to translate 'by'.

The example in the dictionary: "Bókin er samin *af* honum." - "The book is written by him."

As for the other questions in your _original_ post.

1) I wouldn't translate "Obama kom til Sádí-Arabíu" as "Obama came to Saudi Arabia" unless there was some indication that the person who wrote it was in Saudi Arabia. _Koma_ can also mean 'to arrive', so I would say "Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia". _Koma _is generally a lot broader in meaning than the English 'come'.

2) My girlfriend and I weren't able to come up with a certain answer (since she speaks Icelandic instinctively and will happily confess to not being an expert on grammar), but we _think_ you probably use _eftir að_ when the thing that it describes contains a verb.

On Google I found the statement, presumably detailing an allergy:-
"Ég verð rosalegt þrútin eftir brauð." - "I become violently swollen after bread."
My girlfriend said it could be rewritten as:-
"Ég verð rosalegt þrútin eftir *að* ég *borða* brauð."

I also have to correct one of my own earlier posts.



thegooseking said:


> (Technically you could say "sem sendi var" if we were talking about a definite masculine noun, since *sendi* also happens to be the weak masculine past participle, but we're talking about an indefinite feminine noun.)



This is just plain wrong. You only use the weak inflection for attributive adjectives, and the past participle here behaves as a predicative adjective, not an attributive adjective, so it should use the strong inflection. Sorry about that.


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## Alxmrphi

Takk kærlega! Þú gaft mér mjög að hugleiga!

I should have realised about the _arrive/come_ thing, once the idea is in your head from another language it's just so instinctive to translate it literally.

Regarding the last point I think I can see a pattern, so maybe you could ask your girlfriend to see if my attempts are correct, when you say you use it when a verb follows, it sort of appears to be an infinitive marker, but with an object right between the marker and the actual verb...

So would that structure would mean these are correct:

1) Ég sá hann eftir* að* ég *kom* heima...
....I saw him after I came home

2) Ég heimsótti hana í sjúkrahúsinu eftir *að* Mary *talaði* mig um brakið
... I visited her in hospital after Mary told me about the crash

Though I can spot something, the English doesn't really include a conjugated verb in your example yet I using conjugated verbs in my English example and translating them with an infinitive which I don't think is correct.

Maybe to get to the English I should just change it to... *eftir ég kom heima* / _*eftir Mary talaði mig*_...

Ahhhhh, I think I was wrong in thinking of it as an infinitve marker because in the original sentence it uses að Obama* kom*... so that leads me to believe that my first attempts were correct..

Could you confirm that?


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## thegooseking

Yeah, sorry, my example was a bit confusing. It was just the closest example to hand. It _is_ conjugated, but the first person singular of _að borða_ just so happens to be the same as the infinitive.

Your second example should probably be "...eftir að Mary sagði mér um brakið", or possibly even "...eftir að Mary hafði sagt mér um brakið". (And is 'brak' usually used for that kind of crash? I have to admit I'm not nearly so strong on vocabulary as I am on grammar )

But I think you've got the "eftir að" idea right. I'll ask my girlfriend when I get a chance, but this seems like the conclusion we _sort of_ came to.


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## Alxmrphi

Uhh I need to check my posts before posting!
I used að tala when I wanted to say "to tell" which is að segja, I knew that!
My mind was concentrating 100% on the structure and I just got the wrong word! 

I shouldn't have missed the dative inflection though, that was a stupid mistake!
Does that mean the first example is ok?

As for 'brak' - I presume so.. I saw it as a heading for a news item on Icelandic TV regarding the recent airbus crash in Brazil, so I presumed it would work the same for a car crash, but in my example it's not defined what type of crash so could be a plane crash as well I guess..

One other tiny thing, in post #8, shouldn't it be "þrútinn" as you're male?


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## thegooseking

Yeah, but it's an easy mistake, 'tell' and 'tala' being quite similar words.

The first example looks fine to _me_. I think it's right. That doesn't _necessarily_ mean it is.

The other point was well spotted, but no, 'þrútin' is correct, because I was directly quoting someone else (who is presumably female), not talking about myself


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## 'Islendingur

Hi guys.
You are so deep in grammar that I will not even try and touch that part.
But, just want to correct the word crash here. Crash is árekstur (bíll) eða hrap (flugvél). We also use crash for computers in English, and in Icelandic we say "talvan fraus" or even "talvan krassaði"  where krassaði is simply the english word, slightly modified..lol.

So, let´s correct this one sentence to give you an example:
Ég heimsótti hana í sjúkrahúsinu eftir *að* Mary *talaði* mig um brakið
... I visited her in hospital after Mary told me about the crash
Should be: 'Eg heimsótti hana á sjúkrahúsið (eða spítalann) eftir að María sagði mér frá árekstrinum.

On the other hand, brak(ið), means something like " the remains" (of the car...plane...house...or whatever is left of something after a catastrophic event) 

Also, when a plane crashes or a ship sinks, we quite often use the verb "að farast" . It also goes for human lifes lost. Ex:  Flugvélin fórst í lendingu (the plane crashed during landing), skipið fórst á Faxaflóa, (the ship sank in Faxaflói), það fórust 13 manns í snjóflóðinu, ( 13 people died in the avalanche). 

Þór.


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## Alxmrphi

Thanks Þór!

*Eftir áreksturinn, margir aðstoðuðu að leita braksins.*
After the crash, many people helped to search through the wreckage/debris.

I think I'm missing a word for 'through', but is that sort of the general idea?


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## bjornl

it's tölva, not talva. a very common mistake by native speakers and please try to avoid it. its derived from the words tala and völva. tala means a number and völva is some sort of a forecasting devise used and known a few hundreds years ago.


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## bjornl

Alxmrphi said:


> Thanks Þór!
> 
> *Eftir áreksturinn, margir aðstoðuðu að leita braksins.*
> After the crash, many people helped to search through the wreckage/debris.
> 
> I think I'm missing a word for 'through', but is that sort of the general idea?



of course it depends on what kind of crash you're talking about. if you mean car crash and they're trying to find something in the wreckage it would sound something like
Eftir áreksturinn, margir(/mikið af fólki) hjálpuðu/aðstoðuðu við skoðun braksins


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## Alxmrphi

bjornl said:


> of course it depends on what kind of crash you're talking about. if you mean car crash and they're trying to find something in the wreckage it would sound something like
> Eftir áreksturinn, margir(/mikið af fólki) hjálpuðu/aðstoðuðu við skoðun braksins



Ah ok, that's what I meant! Like trying to find the brake cables or if it was a plane crash, then the black box etc.



> it's tölva, not talva. a very common mistake by native speakers and please try to avoid it


I didn't understand what you meant at first, but now I do, I always knew tölva but now re-reading Þór's message I see the sense now.

The only thing I'm confused about is "hjálpuðu / aðstoðuðu við skoðun braksins" ...  
Actually... I think I do get it, skoðun (i.e. examination) and then 'of the wreckage' with the article needs the genitive.

I wasn't sure because when I first wrote it, it was genitive because að leita required it, but yeah, I see it's að aðstoða við + nafnorð (á þolfalli) + nafnorð (á eignarfalli) við ákverinn greinir.
Thanks for the help!


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## butra

bjornl said:


> Eftir áreksturinn, margir(/mikið af fólki) hjálpuðu/aðstoðuðu við skoðun braksins


 
Við segjum ekki mikið af fólki. Við segjum margt fólk eða fjöldi fólks.


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## Alxmrphi

butra said:


> Við segjum ekki mikið af fólki. Við segjum margt fólk eða fjöldi fólks.



En þið segið líka "margir" og þýðir samt eins og '_margt fólk / fjöldi fólks_'?


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## butra

Alxmrphi said:


> En þið segið líka "margir" og þýðir samt eins og '_margt fólk / fjöldi fólks_'?


 
Alveg rétt!


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## thegooseking

bjornl said:


> it's tölva, not talva. a very common mistake by native speakers and please try to avoid it. its derived from the words tala and völva. tala means a number and völva is some sort of a forecasting devise used and known a few hundreds years ago.



Slightly off-topic, but isn't *völva* a _person_? Like a psychic or a fortune-teller or a prophetess? That's the way I first heard of it: I've never heard of it meaning a device (though I'll admit that doesn't say much).


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## Alxmrphi

Searching on google I see your book GK
But couldn't a psychic also be considered a 'forecasting device' (telling the future) ?


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## bjornl

jæja allt í lagi, var ekki alveg viss. orðið fólk hefur alltaf ruglað mig þar sem þetta er eintölu orð með fleirtölu merkingu hehe. however im not sure about the origin of völva, i was told that it was some sort of device but then again, it sounds like it could be a some sort of a psychic, or alxmrphi. let me get back to you on that one, unless someone knows it already


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