Sverrir Hólmarsson; Sanders, Christopher; Tucker, John / Íslensk-ensk orðabók (1989)
Introductory Comments
Icelandic is, like Russian, Latin, and Ancient Greek, a highly inflected language with extremely variable inflection patterns. As far as possible, every one of these patterns has been included here.
Nouns
The declensions of each noun can be worked out using the information given alongside the relevant headword in the dictionary and the notes that accompany the tables given here in the Grammar.
Adjectives
As in German and Old English, adjectives have both a strong and weak declension: different forms of the adjective are used depending on whether the thing or person referred is definite or indefinite (the red house rauða húsið; a red house rautt hús).
Pronouns
For pronouns, feminine and neuter singular forms and all the nominative plurals are given in the body of the dictionary alongside the headform which is the masculine nominative singular. In the case of personal pronouns these inflected forms also feature as independent headwords. In case of uncertainty, desired forms of any pronoun can be looked up in the tables provided here.
Verbs
It has not been possible to mention all the variations here, but the basic patterns are presented in detail. No special attention is given to the reflexive or middle-voice forms, which are characterized by the -st ending (e.g. the reflexive infinitive of bjóða is bjóðast).
Further reading
Readers who desire more information are referred to Isländische Grammatik by Bruno Kress (VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig 1982), A Course in Modern Icelandic by Jón Friðjónsson (Tímaritið Skák, Reykjavík 1978), Icelandic by Stefán Einarsson (The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1949) and Íslensk beygingafræði – Isländische Formenlehre – Icelandic Inflections by Colin D. Thomson (Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg 1987).
Vowel changes
The following are the most common vowel changes encountered in the inflections of Icelandic nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns and verbs, and a reasonable familiarity with them is essential:
[p. 34]| A. In stressed syllables: | |
| a – e | fara – fer telja – taldi langur – lengri |
| á – æ | þáttur – þættir hár – hærri fá – fær skáru – skæri |
| ó – æ | bróðir – bræður bóndi – bændur stór – stærri ólu – æli |
| u – y | ungur – yngri buðu – byði |
| o – y | sonur – synir yrkja – orti |
| ú/jú/jó – ý | kýr – kú djúpur – dýpri súpa – sýpur ljúga – lýgur bjóða – býður |
| a – ö | hamar – hömrum saga – sögur fara – förum |
| ja – jö | gjafir – gjöf |
| ö – e – a | völlur – velli – vallar faðir – föður – feður maður – menn – mönnum |
| jö – i – ja | fjörður – firði – fjarðar |
| o – e | koma – kemur sofa – sefur |
| ö – e | sökkva – sekkur dökkur – dekkri |
| é – já | tré – trjáa fé – fjár |
| B. In non-stressed syllables: | |
| u – a | söfnuður – safnaðar |
| ja – je | byrjandi – byrjendur |
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