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Introduction to case

What is case?​

Case🇮🇸 fall is a way of marking relationships between elements in a sentence. Case can indicate things such as the doer (“agent”), undergoer (“patient”) or recipient of an action.

The following word classes can be marked for case or “declined”:

For now, we’ll focus on nouns. Icelandic has four cases, each with a typical function:

nefnifall (nf.)nominativeagent
þolfall (þf.)accusativepatient
þágufall (þgf.)dativerecipient
eignarfall (ef.)genitivepossessor

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the meaning of the functions at this stage. Read on and we’ll go into detail on the use of each case individually.

As well as a core typical function, each case has a number of extra uses that will be explained on the following pages.

What causes words to change case?​

A word might appear in a case other than the nominative because it:

  • 🖐 Follows a verb that requires the accusative, dative or genitive;
  • 👉 Follows a preposition that requires the accusative, dative or genitive;
  • 🙋‍♂️ Is indicating possession (genitive case);
  • ⏰ Is part of a time expression (normally accusative or dative);
  • 👻 Appears in an impersonal construction with a verb or adjective.

Verbs and prepositions are said to take or “govern” a case.