Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Qupperneq 47

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
Jóhanna Barðdal (2001b:155) accounts for the observed variation in
case-marking in terms of two possible analyses: verbs of transfer typ-
ically assign accusative to the direct object, whereas the caused-
motion construction, which focuses on the change of location under-
gone by the object, is associated with dative case.
It is worth mentioning here that the PP with til ‘to’ indicating the
goal with verbs of this kind is not as productive as the to-phrase in
English, as shown by the fact that it cannot be used with gefa ‘give’
although it can be used with senda ‘send’:
Hún hefur meilað myndina til mín.
she has e-mailed picture-the(A) to me
*Hún hefur gefið myndina til mín.
she has given picture-the(A) to me
Hún hefur sent myndina til mín.
she has sent picture-the(A) to me
As discussed in greater detail below, there are cross-linguistic differ-
ences as to which verbs can occur with the NDA case frame, taking
two NP objects. Whatever the productivity of the NDA case pattem in
Icelandic, dative case is by no means restricted to the indirect (first)
object of a ditransitive verb, nor is the indirect object always marked
dative, as we have seen.
3.2.2 The NAD case frame
For some verbs, it is the second object which is marked dative, and the
first object which is marked accusative. It is useful to distinguish two
subclasses based on the semantics of the two arguments. The first sub-
type consists of ditransitive verbs whose (accusative) indirect object
is more a source than a recipient. This difference in thematic role is
reflected in the English translation. The accusative first object is
semantically a source rather than a goal (recipient — see YMJ 1987
and references cited there for discussion). Here and elsewhere f indi-
cates obsolete usage, but such examples can typically be found in
Cleasby-Vigfússon, for instance: