Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Síða 69

ÓPERSÓNLIG SAGNORÐ í FØROYSKUM
67
verb fýsci ‘to like’ *egfýsi ‘I like’, while an
expletive construction like taðjysir meg at
vita ‘it/that likes-3sg. me to know’ is gram-
matical. It is, in fact, not uncommon to have
expletives with impersonal verbs, where
nominative is ungrammatical. This holds
also for óra ‘suspect’, which does not allow
a nominative subject *eg óri ‘1 suspect’,
while tað órar meg (Lit.: it suspects-3sg.
me-acc. ‘I did suspect that’) is grammati-
cal. Cf. also the ungrammaticality of *eg
nøtri ‘1 shudder’ and *eg skríði ‘I scratch'.
An expression like tað nøtrar meg í lioldið
(Lit.: it shudders-3sg. me-acc. in flesh-acc.
‘I am shuddering’) and tað skríður mær í
oyranum (Lit.: it tickles me-dat. in ear-the-
dat. ‘My ear tickles’).
Nominative is possible with the verb
minnast ‘to remember’, gremjast ‘to
grieve’.
Nominative is also possible with the verb
gruna ‘to suspect’ if it occurs together with
an expletive tað grunar meg (Lit.: It sus-
pects-3sg. me-acc. ‘I suspect that’). The
use with an expletive is illustrated in (9)
with the verb níta ‘to shudder’:
(9) Maður verður eisini agaður við svár-
um sjúkum, so at tað nítur honum
Man becomes also disciplined with
bad sickness, so that il shudders
him-dat.
í merg og mønu...
in marrow-acc. and spinal cord-acc.
(Job 33,19)
The expression tað nítur ímønu og merg ‘it
stings in marrow and spinal cord’ is a com-
mon idiom in Mod. Faroese.
Fig. 1 below shows the semantic class
Fig. 1. shows the semantic verb classes that take ASC, an example with the verbs in Faroese tliat actually may
take an accusative subject, and a column listed Nominative, which says tliat tlte relevant verb allows
nominative case, or if it does not allow nominative case. *eg fýsi witli nominative infront of fýsa 'want’ is not
possible in Faroese, while nominative is allowed infront o/gruna ‘suspect’ and minnast ‘remember’. We Itave
listed dative for the sake of completeness, and the data shows tltat none ofthese verbs take a dative subject.
They do, however, all allow constructions with expletives suclt as a change from meg fýsir at vita ‘me-acc.
wants-3sg. to know’ to tað fýsir meg at vita ‘it wants-3sg. me-acc. to know’. Tlte last column shows tliat the
thematic role ofthe subject is in every instance experiencer.
Semantic verb class Verb Accusative subject Nominative subjec Dative subject Expletives Ø-role of subject
psych-verb fýsa ‘want’ + - + + Experiencer
nøtra ‘shudder’ + - - + Experiencer
níta ‘shudder’ + - - + Experiencer
verbs of perception
and of cogntion óra ‘suspect’ + - - + Experiencer
gruna ‘suspect’ + + - + Experiencer
minnast ‘rcmember’ + + - + Experiencer
Vcrbs involving
the body skríða ‘tickle’ + ■ ■ + Experiencer