Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Page 58

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Bergljót Baldursdóllir
There are two basic categories of noun-declension, strong and weak.
These two are further divided into subclasses based on the gender and
the case endings of the nominative plural and genitive singular. The
subclasses are based on these endings because they are either less dis-
tinctive or non-distinctive (Einarsson 1945:45). There is great irregular-
ity of endings and those who are learning Icelandic as a second language
have been astonished by the number of declension examples which
must be rote learned (Konráðsson 1982:10). Moreover the non-declen-
sion endings are not only irregular and inconsistent, but the use of each
individual case is quite complex. There are some cases which certain
verbs take as objects. That is, although the basic rule is that the object is
put in accusative, some verbs take a dative or even genitive object. The
„normal“ function for the dative is for the indirect object, but is some-
times also used as a possessive. On top of all this, every preposition
governs a noun inflection (case). Some prepositions can sometimes take
either accusative or dative depending on their meaning or sense. Slobin
describes below the acquisition of the Russian locative marker. Russian
demonstrates similar relationship between prepositions and cases as
Icelandic.
The first locatives are noun —noun combinations, ... At the next
level, the first inflections emerge, and the child distinguishes
between position and direction by contrasting the locative case
with the dative and accusative cases. At this stage the child is ex-
pressing the locative notions „in“ and “into“ „on“ and „towards“
using inflections and no prepositions. Later, when prepositions
emerge, it is first just these prepositions which are used —
preforming the same functions as the earlier prepositionless
utterances (Slobin 1973:189—190).
Slobin (1982) points out furthermore that the development of case in-
flections is slower in all of the Indo-European languages that have been
studied, than for example Turkish and other languages which have
more consistent and regular paradigms. The irregularity and inconsis-
tency of these paradigms in the Indo-European languages „contributes
to the prolonged and confused course of inflectional acquisition in
those languages“ (1982:151). He points out that the difference between
e.g. the Indo-European languages and the more „regular" languages
like Hungarian or Turkish is not in the initial discovery of the inflec-