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Introduction to pronouns

Pronouns in Icelandic can be divided into different groups:

A pronoun🇮🇸 fornafn can stand on its own or stand with a noun or adjective, depending on its meaning.

🧠 This might all sound a bit fuzzy, so let’s look at some examples from each category.

Personal​

When many people think of the word “pronoun”, they think of a personal pronoun🇮🇸 persónufornafn, like ég, hann or við:

Ég fór í bakaríið og keypti brauð.
Þór vinnur á veitingastað. Hann er kokkur.
Við ætlum að fara í bíó í kvöld.

Personal pronouns in Icelandic inflect for:

  • Person – first, second, third;
  • Gender – masculine, feminine, neuter;
  • Number – singular, plural;
  • Case – nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

Despite their name, personal pronouns are not only used about people. They can also be used to refer to nouns, which can be masculine, feminine or neuter (blue indicates that the words are referring to the same thing):

Þetta er bíll. Hann er blár.
Þetta er kaka. Viltu borða hana?
Þetta er tré. Það er köttur í því.

Here, the personal pronouns are being used instead of repeating the noun. We could say for example:

Þetta er bíll. Bíllinn er blár.

But instead, we can just say hann and avoid repeating bíll. Otherwise we tend to sound a bit like a 3 year-old 👶

Possessive​

As the name suggests, a possessive pronoun🇮🇸 eignarfornafn tells us information about who or what something belongs to:

Þetta er jakkinn minn.
Er þetta taskan þín?
Hvar er húsið þeirra?

Possessive pronouns in Icelandic inflect for:

  • Person – first, second, third;
  • Gender – masculine, feminine, neuter;
  • Number – singular, plural;
  • Case – nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

In Icelandic, a possessive pronoun normally comes after the thing being described.

Reflexive​

A reflexive pronoun🇮🇸 afturbeygt fornafn is used to show that someone or something is acting on or affecting itself:

Jónatan meiddi sig.
Mamma keypti sér flottan kjól.

Reflexive pronouns can never be the subject of a sentence. As such, they don’t exist in the nominative. Icelandic reflexive pronouns inflect for:

  • Person – first, second, third;
  • Number – singular, plural;
  • Case – accusative, dative, genitive.

They don’t inflect for gender.

Indefinite​

An indefinite pronoun🇮🇸 óákveðið fornafn tells us something about the quantity or number of something, generally in vague terms rather than specific terms:

Það er einhver maður í húsinu.
Amma bakaði nokkrar kökur.
Allir sem mættu voru ánægðir.

All indefinite pronouns in Icelandic inflect for:

  • Gender – masculine, feminine, neuter;
  • Number – singular, plural;
  • Case – nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

Indefinite pronouns can stand on their own or stand with a noun or adjective:

Mig langar í eitthvað girnilegt að borða.

Demonstrative​

A demonstrative pronoun🇮🇸 ábendingarfornafn is used to point to a specific thing (normally amongst a group of other, similar things):

Þessi hamborgari er ótrúlega góður!
Ég ætla ekki að selja þessa peysu, ég ætla að selja hina.

There are only three demonstrative pronouns in Icelandic:

  • þessi “this (one), that (one)”;
  • sá “that (one)”;
  • hinn “the other (one)”.

All of them inflect for:

  • Gender – masculine, feminine, neuter;
  • Number – singular, plural;
  • Case – nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

Demonstrative pronouns are often used contrastively. This means you can often find them in pairs like þessi ... hinn.