Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Blaðsíða 37

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
verbs and section 4 to monotransitive verbs. Section 3 also discusses
passivization possibilities of ditransitive verbs (especially section
3.4), gives a general overview of the case marking pattems found with
ditransitive verbs in Icelandic and shows that most dative (indirect)
objects with ditransitive verbs are either recipients or benefactives (or,
more generally, goals). As section 4 indicates, it is more difficult to
come up with a semantic characterization of dative objects of mono-
transitive verbs, although it is possible to find some obvious tenden-
cies. Finally, section 5 is a conclusion, followed by an appendix on
monotransitive verbs goveming dative objects in German.
2. The relative status of accusative and dative case
2.1 Accusative as default case
Accusative is clearly the unmarked or “default” case on verbal
objects, just as nominative is the unmarked case on subjects.
Accusative is by far the most common case on verbal objects, and
most new verbs govem accusative.6 This type of case marking is often
referred to as grammatical or syntactic case, or in the generative liter-
ature, as stmctural Case. Certain semantic classes of verbs probably
never govem anything other than default case on their objects. For
example, verbs of creation (byggja ‘build’, smíða ‘make, build’) with
effected (as opposed to affected) objects always govem accusative
(Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, class handout dated 7 April, 1997). There are
also morphological generalizations at work; as illustrated in (3),
denominal verbs usually govem accusative on an object denoting the
locatum (Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, class handout, based on a collection
of verbs of smearing (Icel. smurningssagnir) compiled by Kristín M.
Jóhannsdóttir (1996:111)):
6 “sagnir sem stjóma þolfalli em langalgengastar [í málinu], og nýjar sagnir [sem
koma inn í málið] virðast flestar stjóma þolfalli” (Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson 1983a: 193).
However, according to Jóhanna Barðdal (2001b:l 18), nearly 25% of novel verbs in
the language assign dative to their objects, so both accusative and dative can be said
to be productive cases on objects.