# Icelandic: A good friend of ours



## ShakeyX

Is it possible to have the indefinite (strong adjectives) when a noun is under a definite genitive (okkar)

So

Góði vinur okkar - I assume would be Our good friend, it's a definite thing so follows the normal rules of weak adjectives being used regardless of the definite article being appended.

Góður vinur okkar - is this then possible, to say he is "a" good friend of ours? Or is this simply not possible?

I only ask as I just saw this on Wikipedia:

*Víetnamska (tiếng Việt) er þjóðtunga og opinbert mál Víetnam.

*I would have assumed opinbera mál Víetnam but then I thought what if it is just one of many, is this construction then possible? I've never thought about it before.


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## agnolif

ShakeyX said:


> Is it possible to have the indefinite (strong adjectives) when a noun is under a definite genitive (okkar)
> 
> *Góði vinur okkar* - I assume would be Our good friend, it's a definite thing so follows the normal rules of weak adjectives being used regardless of the definite article being appended.
> *Góður vinur okkar* - is this then possible, to say he is "a" good friend of ours? Or is this simply not possible?



To me, this analysis seems correct.



ShakeyX said:


> *Víetnamska (tiếng Việt) er þjóðtunga og opinbert mál Víetnam.  *(Víetnam*s* ? ...genitive ?)I would have assumed opinbera mál Víetnam but then I thought what if it is just one of many, is this construction then possible? I've never thought about it before.



In this case, I usually regard the adjective as being an apposition. This is to say, the adjective _opinber_ is probably not attributive but predicative : the/a language, which happens to be the official one...

In summary, the rule is rather simple when a name is determined by the genitive of another name. There are two possibilies:
a = the default one) emphasis is put on ownership/specification and any adjective qualifying the former name should be strongly inflected. In this case the adjective does not contribute much to the definition (hence "...which happens to be so and so..." in the glose)
b) emphasis is put on the quality described by the adjective, which should appear in the weak declension. In this case the adjective contributes to the semantic demonstration of the name (nearly having the strength of a demonstrative).

Nevertheless, my grammar handbook says that this is not an absolue rule and there may be variations depending on expressive intentions and speaker's practice ("Non si tratta comunque di regole assolute, dipendento il tutto dalle intenzioni espressive e sopratutto dalle abitudini del parlante").


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## Segorian

First, I agree that this should be *opinbert mál Víetnams*. Otherwise, there are a number of correct constructions to choose from. The one used here is the one which many people would consider most appropriate in formal written text (strongly inflected adjective, no article). In speech, the preferred construction is _opinbera málið í Víetnam_ (weakly inflected adjective, suffixed article), while _hið opinbera mál Víetnams_ (weakly inflected adjective, free-standing article) is even more formal than the first construction.

Note that while you can also say both _opinbert mál í Víetnam_ and _hið opinbera mál í Víetnam_, the construction _*opinbera málið Víetnams*_ is not possible.

Finally, _opinbera mál Víetnam(s)_ is not acceptable and would be considered a grammatical error by many people.

Cheers


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## ShakeyX

Thanks for your reply, but do you have any reason why "opinbera mál Víetnams" would be grammatically incorrect? To me this seems to most standard way of saying "The official language of Vietnam"

I assumed due to the lack of weak adjective plus no definite article it was just assumed that this is ONE of the official languages, among others. Is this assumption wrong? I'm unsure what the message is that the writer was trying to express now.

If a weak adjective is used with the mál Víetnams which in itself is a definite phrase, than that leads to that one place I haven't looked much into yet, but has been mentioned to me before where it sort of means "The language of Vietnam which is official"?


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## Alxmrphi

> Thanks for your reply, but do you have any reason why "opinbera mál Víetnams" would be grammatically incorrect? To me this seems to most standard way of saying "The official language of Vietnam"


I think we need to find out why you want to make it _opinbera_? You don't have the article with real genitives on nouns, so there is no grammatical definiteness. Since there is no grammatical definiteness, there's no reason to have a weak declension. I know I've mentioned that in the past to you .

Bíll*inn* hans
Bíll Páls......... (not definite)
Bíll*inn* Páls. 



> If a weak adjective is used with the mál Víetnams which in itself is a definite phrase, than that leads to that one place I haven't looked much into yet, but has been mentioned to me before where it sort of means "The language of Vietnam which is official"?


No need to stray into any dark, unexplored territory. It's not definite, that's all.

Opinbera tungumálið í Mósambík er portúglaska.
Portúgalska er opinbert tungumál Mósambík.


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## ShakeyX

Okay now I am very very confused. I perfectly understand that no article is used in constructions where the genitive noun is in itself definite. But we have also discussed that definiteness has nothing to do (or not entirely to do) with if an article is in use or not, weak adjectives are simply used to imply definiteness (or themselves imply definiteness when they conform to this system).

I mean you are not telling me if I had a best friend and someone was to describe him they would say "Bestur vinur Jakes"... I've never come across, or atleast never registered that because I've been assuming that anything that is definite, article or not, calls for the use of the weak adjective "besti" regardless of an article or not.

So I look at this and see there is only one Vietnam, it is a definite thing.

Opinbera tungumálið er oft notað... - agree? if this was the start to a sentence referring to the official language again.
Opinbera tungumál landsins
Opinbera tungumál Víetnams.

I'm sorry, you might have told me but I honestly never clicked atleast that there was a scenario where Opinbert would be used to describe something definite (other than the older use you informed me of where Nýr bíllin (the car which is new).


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## Alxmrphi

Are you seeing the Icelandic construction, translating to English and then wondering why you have a "*the*" that wasn't in the original?
If that's the case, you need to imagine this as: _Vietnam's official language_. Translate it in your mind to that first, then when you get to English's, "The official language of Vietnam" you can see where the "the" was added in. Not that_ hið opinbera tungumál Víetnams _would be wrong (bit formal), it's just not quite the same thing as what you asked about.

Anyway, I think I see your dilemma a bit better. You do have the weak declension used with other genitive nouns that don't have an article. I don't have a concrete explanation as to the where/whens/whys and hows but if I find one, I'll post back.


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## ShakeyX

Okay glad you see because I honestly wasn't doing any english translation, it has simply been that in all cases (until this one) or you know, since I have had a handle on the weak adjective, that definiteness isn't implied by the "THE/hið/ið" or anything else, definiteness is present if it is define thnig we are referring to. 

I.e. "Svarti Skuggi" there is no need for the or in the English translation a THE being there... however the implication is that it is a definite thing, a character, BLACK SHADOW! The same in Þessi fallega kona, definiteness is implied by Þessi and there for the weak adjective is used.

Stærsta deild fyrirtæksins - deild fyrirtæksins in itself is a definite thing but as you said it's ungrammatical to have deildið fyrirtlksins which I'm fine with. And stærsta is weak.

I use all these examples from the other thread I started because they were all agreed on and I'm not atall trying to back you into a corner and say "you said this, you said this" just saying my understand to this point has had no implication that opinbert tungumal of something definite could ever be opinbert and not opinbera (UNLESS as I hypothesised that it was just one of many official languages but that is seeming not to be the case)


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## ShakeyX

Reading the thread I just copied all my past examples from I saw a pots I hadn't before with this:

(a) Ég horfði upp í blá*an *himininn
(b) Ég horfði á blá*a* bílinn

Is this then something to do with the fact that there is only one official language and to use "opinbera tungumál" would imply there are other languages which are simply not official?


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## Alxmrphi

> Okay glad you see because I honestly wasn't doing any english translation, it has simply been that in all cases (until this one) or you know, since I have had a handle on the weak adjective, that definiteness isn't implied by the "THE/hið/ið" or anything else, definiteness is present if it is define thnig we are referring to.


I think you've taken the advice that there shouldn't be a total dependency on the definite article and have swung completely too far the opposite way. Definiteness is more often than not exactly implied by the definite article. It's just not the case that it ALWAYS is. If you said: _Ég á bók_, that's not definite, but_ Ég á bókina_ is definite. I know you already know that, but you can't go around saying definite articles don't have anything to do with making things definite! People will wonder what drugs you're on. 


> The same in Þessi fallega kona, definiteness is implied by Þessi and there for the weak adjective is used.


That's not "the same," though.
_Þessi _is just as much a definite article (demonstrative article, part of the 'definite' family) as _hið _or_ -inn/-in/-ið_ at the end of words. For all intents and purposes, _þessi _is a definite article.


> (a) Ég horfði upp í bláan himininn(b) Ég horfði á bláa bílinn
> 
> 
> Is this then something to do with the fact that there is only one official language and to use "opinbera tungumál" would imply there are other languages which are simply not official?


There is no connection between what's going on in those examples and this case. Those examples are from "The Syntax of Icelandic" and describe an descriptive definite.
What I believe is going on here, more than anything, is that the country doesn't *possess *the language. It's a syntactically similar but quite structurally dissimilar case. A country can have things that are part of it, which are expressed with the genitive but it's not about actual "possession" or true human links like "best friend" or other examples like that. If you want to talk about the Queen of Denmark, it's "_Drottning Denmerkur_," and not, _drottning-*in*_. Obviously there can only be one reigning monarch at any one time, so there is no implication of 'one of many' or anything like that. Again, this is like "Denmark's Queen," and that's the way to think about it.


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## ShakeyX

Okei I understand what you are saying here completely, don't have any doubt about that, I know we've discussed things that are OF things but not necessarily owned, much like friends. But in the case of friends don't you agree it would be "Besti vinur Jakes" or are you in disagreement there?

I mean what we have here is.

-Strong adjective
-No definite article

Which in all and any other situations discussed to date would lead no one to believe that this is a definite thing, and it's countable so therefore "an official language". Even though by checking it seems it is the only official language.

Again I get everything your writing, but it still doesn't lead me to new conclusions about this construction. I don't directly own my friend but I would still say "besti vinur Jakes" and if we were to say Jake's new car would it not be... Nýi bíll Jakes.

I mean if you disagree with that then that's another matter, but I am almost 100% sure that those examples are correct.

I'm all for the country not owning the language directly and also the fact it's a proper noun meaning that the definite isn't used but I just can't see why the strong adjective is used given that the Car and Friend examples i'm giving, I assume are correct. If so then they are grammatically similar/exactly the same to the opinbera tungumál Víetnams example and you can see then why this is confusing.

P.S. Okay i see actually after a few re-reads that you may have debunked it by saying vinur is human connection and my car example is ofcourse an actual possession... this just seems a very niche and tiny portion of the language. Things that are part of but not owned by something and also don't have human connections, but are infact still definite by nature but dont make use of the adjective form that would imply it's definiteness. Daym


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## Alxmrphi

> Okei I understand what you are saying here completely, don't have any doubt about that, I know we've discussed things that are OF things but not necessarily owned, much like friends. But in the case of friends don't you agree it would be "Besti vinur Jakes" or are you in disagreement there?


I don't disagree with that example at all. The trouble is that you define rules too rigidly that come bite to bite you. Did you know that _besti _can mean _very good_ in Icelandic? There's not this English meaning of 'singular best' but rather a reference to a car but without any need for an article. Here's an example I took from a book on Icelandic grammar: _Þetta er besti bíll _(This is a very good car). Not everything is as clearly defined as I think you suspect.


> Which in all and any other situations discussed to date would lead no one to believe that this is a definite thing, and it's countable so therefore "an official language"


Here is a perfect example of what I was just saying. Icelandic doesn't have an indefinite article, this doesn't mean that everything that exists without an article is the same thing as putting "an" in front of it. The option isn't there in Icelandic to use, sometimes you don't need it. If you haven't attuned yourself to just being able to be general and not always thinking it's a specific item. You're not letting your mind conceive that, "This is car," is a perfectly fine thing to say. You really should work on stepping out of how you are viewing these problems from an English-speakers way of thinking. "Þetta er besti bíll í heimi!" - in that example, it's not "*a *world." There is no need for it, but it doesn't always link back to something indefinite _as we would see/say it_. That's why you can't just make deductions like: 


> and it's countable so therefore "an official language".


It might work a lot of the time but you can't make that sort of deduction unless you're aware that it's coarse and it won't work all of the time. If you were translating Icelandic and put every noun without a definite article (that also wasn't a general use like English has) then you'd soon see how weird the translation was. Deducing by the fact there is no article and therefore it means "*a* language" will only lead you down a slippery problematic path that takes you further away from getting to understand the language you're trying to learn.

Nýr bíll Láru og Friðjóns.
Nýr bíll heimilismanna.
Nýr bíll forsætisráðherra.
Náinn vinur Madoffs látinn.
Harrison var náinn vinur Erics Claptons.
"Leikarinn Ólafur Darri Ólafsson hefur verið _góður vinur skoska leikarans Gerard Butler _síðan þeir léku saman í Bjólfskviðu." (source)
"Vínið kemur af landareign Charles sem er _gamall frændi Colbert_ fjölskyldunnar" (source)
" þar sem við ræddum um _hugsanlegt samstarf Sunnu _og IranAir um flugrekstur á áætlunarleiðum..."
"_Endurteknir hrekkir Haralds_ konungs við Þjóðólf eru ekki aðeins lýsandi..."
"_Augljós tengsl Hannesar Eggertssonar_ , hirðstjórans íslenska , við Hamborgarmenn"

Just have a look at some of these. I'm not saying I have a rule, but what I am saying is you can't point to one structure, and then point to one that looks pretty close, and deduce they follow the same rules. If language was extremely primitive, maybe you could get away with that. I get you need to make the rules to connect what is going on, all I'm saying is that because one thing looks like another, it doesn't mean it is. That also means don't look at those examples and walk away saying, "So, the rule is always strong adjective in these circumstances," because it's not. Plenty of times there are weak ones, too. Just allow the possibility for variability, if you can.


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