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Reporting What Somebody Thinks or Says

að introduces the clause after verbs of knowing, thinking and saying: vita, halda, segja, finnast, sjá, heyra.

• Ég veit að hún kemur á morgun.
• Mér finnst að við ættum að fara.
• Hann sagði að veðrið yrði vont.

Two different að

The same little word also marks the infinitive. Compare:

• Ég ætla að fara. - infinitive marker, no clause follows.
• Ég veit að hann fer. - conjunction, a whole clause with its own subject and finite verb follows.

Word order inside the clause

You met að as a linking word in Samtengingar; this is what it does beyond joining clauses. Icelandic does not send the verb to the end. The subordinate clause keeps subject before verb, and a sentence adverb such as ekki normally follows the finite verb:

• Ég veit að hún kemur ekki í kvöld.

But when a subordinate clause comes first in the sentence, it counts as the first element, so the main clause verb comes immediately after it: Þegar veðrið er gott líður mér vel.

Punctuation

As a rule no comma is written before að (Ritreglur § 21.1.3 allows one only where it prevents a misreading): Hann veit að hún kemur. The conjunction can even be dropped: Hann veit hún kemur. The same holds when a subordinate clause is fronted: Þegar veðrið er gott líður mér vel, with no comma at the join.

Some verbs - vona, vilja, efast um - put the following verb in the subjunctive (Ég vona að þú komir). Learn those as set phrases for now; the subjunctive itself comes at B1.