Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Page 67

Language Shift in an lcelandic Child
65
same could be said about the confluence of structures; they appeared to
be quite limited (1978:590). For the present purpose the term simplifi-
cation appears inappropriate. Although some simplification of the end-
ings of the Icelandic noun declension system has taken place, it is also
being used in a different way than normally, and great deal of complex-
ity is kept. Considering Table 1, the simplification can be seen in the in-
creased use of the nominative endings where other case endings should
be used, and furthermore in the almost disappearance of the dative. In
1982 the dative is used 22.5% of the time and in 1984 only 3.2% of the
time. The accusative is used 25% of the time in 1982 when other cases
should be used, and its use appears to have increased as in 1984 it is
used 38% of the time.
There are several possible factors which could have influenced this
use of the nominative and accusative. Firstly, the nature of the Icelan-
dic noun declension system can be used to explain the characteristics of
the restructuring of the case forms (endings). In spite of the complexity
and irregularity of the endings of the noun declension system, there are
some endings which occur more frequently and more regularly than
others. For example, common to most strong nouns of all genders is the
lack of any ending in the accusative singular. Furthermore, in the weak
declension the accusative, dative and genitive are nondistinct in the
singular. For example, the weak masculine nouns have the ending -i in
nominative but the ending -a in the other cases. The weak feminine
nouns have the ending -a in nominative and the -u in other cases. The
weak neuter nouns have -a in all cases. Of the 31 nouns in the data in
1984, there are 14 which stand inappropriately in accusative. 8 of these
14 are nouns in singular declined according to the weak declension.
The words tími ‘time’, skóli ‘school’, gluggi ‘window’, and lína iine’
are words declined according to the weak declension and Baldur uses
these always with the ending -a of the accusative, dative and the geni-
tive. The common factor of these nouns and others is that their accu-
sative, dative and genitive are non-distinctive and should therefore be
grouped separately as accusative/dative/genitive instead of nominative.
The other words which fill the „accusative instead of...“ category are
always strong nouns which have the accusative singular without an
ending. For example the words eldur ‘fire’ or bíll ‘car’ are always used
by Baldur without an ending, i.e. in accusative.
The second factor which can be seen to influence the changes is the