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”:
- Pronouns
- Nouns
- Adjectives
- Numbers 1–4
For now, we’ll focus on nouns. Icelandic has four cases, each with a typical function:
| nefnifall (nf.) | nominative | agent |
| þolfall (þf.) | accusative | patient |
| þágufall (þgf.) | dative | recipient |
| eignarfall (ef.) | genitive | possessor |
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.
