Strong Nouns

So far, we have only discussed weak nouns. Now it it time to get familiar with the other half of nouns: strong nouns!

What Are Strong Nouns

Recall that weak nouns are the nouns that end in a vowel in all their singular forms (e.g., pabbi, mamma, hjarta). Storng nouns, on the other hand, do not do this. Strong nouns have at least one consonant ending in their singular forms.

Strong nouns are more complicated than weak nouns for two primary reasons: they are more varied within the patterns, and there are more patterns to memorize.

This lesson is going to cover a few of the most improtant strong noun patterns and ones closely related. While these patterns will not cover every single strong noun, almost all other strong nouns will decline in ways that are very similar to them, with perhaps a letter or two different. By learning these patterns, you will be able to get a great general feeling for how to decline any nouns you encounter, and those small differences shouldn’t be too big of a problem. We will discuss those different patterns below the main tables.

Categorizing Strong Nouns

So far, we have been categorizing inflection patterns by their gender and their strength as a shorthand. This has worked great so far, but what if there is more than one pattern inside each gender's strength?

The true way to call noun patterns is by their inflectional endings. Particulary, the genitive singular and the nominative plural forms. For eample, all of the nouns that fall into the (-s, -ar) pattern end with an -s in the singular genitive and a -ar in the plural.

Strong Masculine Nouns

The (-s, -ar) Pattern

-s, -ar	Sing.	Plur.
Nom.	-ur, -l, -n	-ar
Acc.	-	-a
Dat.	-i*	-um
Gen.	-s	-a

Example 1: Ég elska fisk. - (I love fish).
Example 2: Þú kastaði steininum. - (You threw the stone.)
Example 3: Víkingarnir borðöðu hesta. - (The vikings ate horse.)
Example 4: Íslendingar borða ost. - (Icelanders eat cheese.)
Example 5: Þetta er stóll. - (Thiat is a chair.)

The (-s, -ar) pattern is the most common strong masculine pattern. It is commonly used by nouns that end in -ur, -nn, and -ll. When the word leaves the nominative, those ending -nn and -ll loose only one of their double letters.

There is an asterisk in the table next to the singular dative because that form is less consistant. Historically, all nouns following this pattern had the -i ending, but today it is less consistant. For example, steinn (rock) and fiskur (fish) have it while bíll (car) and stóll (chair) does not.

The (-is, ar) Pattern

The (-is, ar) pattern follows (-s, -ar) closely. It is the exact same in the plural. The only differences in the sinuglar is that all of the forms start with i, and the nominative ends with an -r. Common words include læknir (doctor), frystir (freezer), and greinir (definite ending).

-is, -ar	Sing.	Plur.**
Nom.	-ir	-ar
Acc.	-i	-a
Dat.	-i	-um
Gen.	-is	-a

Example 1: Hann er góður læknir. - (He is a doctor).
Example 2: Hann borgaði leiknunum. - (He paid the doctors.)
Example 3: Hinn er íslenski greinirinn. - (Hinn is the Icelandic definite ending.)

The (-ar, ir) Pattern

The (-s, -ir) pattern only affects a few words, but some of them are very common. It follows (-s, -ar) except that it has an -i in the accusative plural, matching the nominative plural. Common words in this pattern are vinur (friend), veggur (wall), fundur (meeting), and atburður (event).

-ar, -ir	Sing.	Plur.**
Nom.	-ur	-ir
Acc.	-	-i
Dat.	-i	-um
Gen.	-ar	-a

Example 1: Vegurinn er grænn. - (The wall is green.)
Example 2: Hún elskar hvali. - (She loves whales.)