Heill Hakur !
(Hope you enjoy the summer days!)

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Thorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> Heil!
>
> Konrad is of course right that "Hann sem er spakr" is not a complete
> sentence. But I'm not sure that was what Dan meant. It's certainly a
> correct _start_ of sentence. :)
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur

I'd like to add some remarks - even if the answer has
already been given. Imagine a situation where someone
asks "Who hit you?" and the man spoken to, (who happens
to have a swollen nose) answers: "it was the guy with
the hat".

Then in Norwegian the answer might be formulated
in several ways:

i) "Det var han med hatten som slo meg"
(it was the guy with the hat who struck me)

ii) "Det var han med hatten"
(it was the guy with the hat -last part suppressed)

iii) "Han med hatten"
(the guy with the hat - the first part suppressed)

Note that the literal translation "he with the hat"
is not correct English. I suspect the Icelandic
syntax to be quite similar to the Norwegian syntax here.


Another hypothetical situation: Teacher asks "who answered
113 times 9 equals 1017?") A pupil answers "the clever
guy on the last bench did".
Norwegian:
T: "Hvem svarte riktig?"
P: "Det var han som alltid er så flink. Han helt bak."
(it was he who is always so clever. In the back of the room)
You cannot use "den" here. It has to be "han".
However "Den som kan svare på dette, er klok"
(He who can answer this, is wise)

I don't know what the exact rules are here.
Can you supply the same type of dialogue in Icelandic?
Especially such as illustrate differences between
"hann" and "þann/sá"?

Here is a closely related example in Icelandic
that I found on the net:

" Hér reynir á speki.
Sá sem skilning hefur
reikni tölu dýrsins"
(="he who has wisdom, etc..",
but Icelandic uses sá, not hann)
Same with Norwegian: "Den som har forstand,
han får regne ut dyrets tall" (Den and not han)
English: "Let him that hath understanding, etc.."
(uses him/he)


Best regards
Xigung