# Icelandic: hverju og hvers



## Alxmrphi

Hæ allir, 

Kannski einhver getur aðstoðað mig með þetta:

*Én eg hef enga hugmynd um hverju maður klæðist í svona ferð og hvers konar föt á að taka með*..

Ég skil setninguna en það er eitthvað að ég skil ekki... *hverju* og *hvers *hérna.

Ok, so, when I searched, both of these brought me back to hvað in the dictionary, I don’t understand the declension, I couldn’t decline hvað, so I’m not sure what’s going on really.

Can anyone shed any light on what is making them change, I know ‘um’ takes the accusative, but I’m sure I remember a ‘-ju’ ending meaning nominative plural somewhere and ‘hvers’ obviously looks genitive but it doesn’t make sense as ‘hvers konar föt’ means ‘_what type of clothing/clothes’_ ...

I’m also wondering if *í svona ferð* here means *‘on such a trip/journey’.*

*Þakka ykkur.*
*Alex*


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## butra

First of all um does not govern the case of hverju but the indirect interrogative sentence hverju maður klæðist í svona ferð as a whole and the accusative case of föt in the last part. And the declension of hvað goes like this: 

hvað (hvert) 
hvað (hvert) 
hverju 
hvers 
hver 
hver 
hverjum 
hverra. 

If we construct a simple basic sentence with normal word order for statements like maður klæðist vettlingi then it should be easy to see that the case of vettlingur (vettlingi) is governed by the verb klæðast (klæðist). Now we can put the interrogative pronoun hvað instead of the noun vettlingur and we get maður klæðist hverju (the case is the same) and then we put the question word at the front which is the normal word order for interrogative sentences and we get hverju klæðist maður (the case is still the same) and at last we swap two words to get the normal word order in indirect interrogative sentences and we get hverju maður klæðist (and the case is always the same). 

The second part hvers konar föt is more complicated because the word konar (genitive) is only used in the genitive case in combination with a few other words like alls ýmis margs hvers þess but we can use the word kyn instead with the same meaning (hvers kyns) and this combination can be declined in all cases. If we now talk about föt then they can be of any kind. Clothes of any kind can be translated föt hvers kyns but the normal word order is hvers kyns föt. This should explain the case of hvers konar. 

At last you are right about í svona ferð.


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## Alxmrphi

Very complicated! But a clear explanation (on the 15th read! ) it's a complicated topic, I was getting confused because my book said 

"You wear clothes in the dative but you put them on in the accusative", but I remembered it the other way around so *klæðist vettlingi* was confusing me a little bit.

I find it east to imagine the structure (á ensku) to be "_*I have no idea about to what clothes one wears..*_", now that I realise 'hverju' means 'to what', and as you 'wear clothes' in the dative, that makes perfect sense now.. I didn't realise that the verb would affect words _BEFORE_ itself, in a sentence. 

The same with konar, I didn't realise it was in the genitive, as all I had to help me was this dictionary page which doesn't mention the genitive...

You said...


> Clothes of any kind can be translated föt hvers kyns but the normal word order is hvers kyns föt. This should explain the case of hvers konar.


Is it also right to translate it as 'what'.. like:

"Hvers konar bols klæðist þú í kvöld?"
"What type of shirt are you wearing this evening?"

Ahhhhhhhhhh I think I've just made an error, it's "hvers" because of "konar", but the noun should be in the dative, shouldn't it? Ahh I really don't know, I think it might need to be *bol*.

In your last example you wrote " hvers kyns föt" and obviously* fat* is only *föt* in the nominative and accusative plural so it can't be the genitive (*fata*) so yeah, that means in my sentence it should be in the dative... so it's *Hvers konar bol klæðist þú í kvöld?"* (bol = þágufall)

I hope that's correct.


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## butra

You are absolutely correct!


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## Alxmrphi

My favourite sentence

Just a curious question while we're talking about clothes, _bókin mín talar að maður getur viðhaft "að vera í" + þágufall_ _að þýða (á ensku) "wear/have on"_...

I am wearing a jacket - Ég er í jakka.. (rétt?)

_En ef ég vill tala:
_ "_What type of clothes are you wearing_"..
 "*Hvers konar föt í ertu*" ?

Is it right (apologies for the bad Icelandic, hopefully you can understand)

Ahhh it clicked, what you said before, about changing the sentence to interrogative... maybe it'd be* í hvers konar föt ertu*?

(It's my last question of the day I promise)


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## butra

You can say: Í hvers konar fötum ertu? or Hvers konar fötum ertu í?
Don't forget about the dative!


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## Alxmrphi

Ah, so the reason it was föt in the beginning was it wasn't linked with anything that requires the dative? I didn't see it change in the beginning and it slipped my mind to change it when you add something that affects it! 

Takk !!


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## butra

Alxmrphi said:


> _En ef ég vill tala:_



                                 Check out the difference between tala og segja. I believe it is similar to talk and say.
 If I want to talk. Ef ég vil tala.
 If I want to say. Ef ég vil segja.
 AND DON'T YOU EVER SAY ÉG VILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!

just one little l


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## Alxmrphi

Ahhhhhhhh I can't believe I did the double -ll- !! Ahhhh
I definitely need to use segja... it's so irregular (in every way!) I have avoided learning it, I shouldn't have said 'tala' ..... I will learn that verb inside-out, and hopefully NEVER make that mistake again!


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## Alxmrphi

Back again, I was just trying to think in Italian and for some reason I tried to say the same thing in Icelandic... and got a bit confused, but then I thought about something that's been mentioned here and thought about it..

Right, so I know *að horfa á *means to watch, so if I wanted to say "*What are you watching?*" (i.e. on TV) in Icelandic then I got a bit stuck on where to put *á*.

So I originally thought:
*
Hvað ertu að horfa?* (*á = ?*)

So is it right that the *á* is taken out of the sentence, but it's reflected if we change *hvað* to *hverju*? So the way to say it is:

*Hverju ertu að horfa*?

So in a sense *hverju = á hvað* ?

???


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## butra

Á takes acc or dat. In this context it takes acc. The á cannot be left out.

You would say: Hvað ertu að horfa á? or Á hvað ertu að horfa?

In both of the sentences the á governs the case of hvað (acc) and á hvað can never be replaced by hverju.


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## Alxmrphi

Ok, I get it! 
Thanks

I'm used to changing sentences to avoid dangling prepositions and I'm not used to leaving them, it's a habit I need to stop!


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