Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 35

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
the triplet passa barnið NA vs sinna barninu ND vs gæta barnsins NG
‘watch/attend/look after the child’. Some other near-minimal pairs are
given in the tables in (1) for simple transitive verbs, and in (2) for
ditransitive verbs goveming different cases on the second object.
(1) Minimal pairs —
accusative:
a. aka ND vs.
b. hjálpa ND vs.
c. Ijúka ND vs.
d. mæta ND vs.
e. hlífa ND vs.
f. unna ND vs.
monotransitive verbs goveming dative vs.
keyra NA ‘drive’
aðstoða NA ‘help, assist’
klára NA ‘finish’
hitta NA ‘meet’
vernda NA ‘protect’
elska NA ‘love’
(2) Minimal pairs — ditransitive verbs governing dative vs.
accusative on the second object:
a. úthluta e-m e-u NDD vs. skammta e-m e-ð NDA
‘distribute, hand out’ ‘hand out, ration’
b. skila e-m e-u NDD vs. aflienda e-m e-ð NDA
‘retum, give back’ ‘hand over, give back’
For this reason, case-marking in Icelandic is generally analyzed as the
result of lexical idiosyncrasy, so much so that it is frequently referred
to as “quirky case”.5
But while case-marking on verbal complements is to some extent
arbitrary, it is far from random. As Stephen Jay Gould (1985:15) wrote
unmarked order with subject first, then indirect object if any, and direct object last.
Thus ND indicates a verb that takes a nominative subject and a dative object; NDA is
verb that takes a nominative subject, dative indirect object and accusative direct
object. Other abbreviations commonly used in dictionaries to represent verbal argu-
ments: e-ö = neut. accusative (Icel. eitthvaö ‘something(n.N/A)’), e-n = masculine
accusative (Icel. einhvern ‘someone(m.A)’), e-u = neuter dative (Icel. einhverju
‘something(n.D)’), e-m = masculine dative (Icel. einhverjum ‘someone(m.D)), e-s =
genitive (Icel. einhvers ‘someone/something(m./n.G)’.
5 To the best of my knowledge, the term quirky case was first used in print in
Levin & Simpson (1981).