Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 43

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
would be interesting to think about the historical changes in case
assignment by particular verbs in light of recent work by Svenonius
(2001, 2002) arguing that the assignment of dative case marks aspect
and event structure (see also Halldór Armann Sigurðsson 2002).
The increase in verbs goveming dative continues in the modem
period. Many new verbs govern dative case on their objects. Jóhanna
Barðdal (2001b:121) lists 88 novel verbs, many of them borrowings
from Danish or English,which govern dative in Icelandic, and argues
that the assignment of dative to verbal objects is “highly regular and
structured” (p. 125) in that new verbs tend to be “attracted by a clus-
ter of verbs with the same or similar meaning and the same argument
structure constmction” (p. 130). Examples include three new verbs,
bísa, fingra, putta, meaning ‘steal,’ which govem dative like the
already existing stela, hnupla and ræna. There are at least two seman-
tically predictable classes for which dative is on the increase: (i) expe-
riencers (see Jóhanna Barðdal 1993, 2000, Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
1997-98, and section 4.3 below for discussion), and (ii) objects which
undergo movement (Jóhanna Barðdal 1993, 200lb: 139, and section
4.5 below):
(9) keyra mér heim vs. keyra farangurinn heim
‘drive me(D) home’ ‘drive the luggage(A) home’
(10) spóla myndinni til baka ‘rewind the movie (the video-tape)(D)’
negla boltanum ‘kick the ball(D) hard’
forvarda meilinu ‘forward the e-mail(D)’
rústa íbúðinni ‘demolish the apartment(D)’
(and other objects of verbs of splintering, shattering)
Note that objects which undergo movement are by definition themes
since they undergo a change of location.
Some new verbs assign dative case in accordance with the seman-
tic generalizations mentioned here (see Jóhanna Barðdal 2000,
2001b: 155). Jóhanna Barðdal (p.c.) reports encountering dative
objects with the borrowed verbs topikalisera ‘topicalize’, skrambla
scramble’ and stranda ‘strand’ in discussions with linguists. Jóhannes