Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 57

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
As already pointed out by Stefán Einarsson (1945), the dative case on
the indirect object is preserved in the passive. Note that the retained
object bækur is marked nominative rather than accusative in the pas-
sive voice in (35a); as a consequence, the finite verb and the passive
participle agree with bækur rather than with the dative grammatical
subject (cf. YMJ 1985, YMJ 1987, inter alia, for theoretical accounts
of the case switch on the retained object). This is not so surprising
when one takes into account the fact that nominative objects also occur
in modem Icelandic sentences in the active voice. In fact, as Jóhanna
Barðdal (2001b:87) observes, nominative is actually more frequent
than genitive on verbal objects, in her modem Icelandic corpus of
40,000 words, there were 110 nominative objects as compared to only
38 genitive objects. Nominative objects were more common in the spo-
ken corpus (15,000 words) than in the written corpus (25,000 words),
since “the main difference between the two corpora is that oblique sub-
jects, especially dative subjects, are more common in the spoken lan-
guage than in the written gemes” (Jóhanna Barðdal 2001b:88).
The passivization possibilities for the benefactive subclass of NDA
verbs have not been studied systematically, but certainly deserve clos-
er attention. For some verbs of this class, either object may passivize,
at least marginally, as illustrated in (36):
(36)a. Nemendunum vom sett þessi tímamörk strax í fyrsta
tíma.
students-the(D) were set(n.pl.) these deadlines(n.pl.N) right in the
fírst class
‘The students were set this deadline right in the first class.’
b. (?)Þessi tímamörk voru sett nemendunum strax í fyrsta
tíma.
these deadlines(N) were set students-the(D) right in the
first class
‘This deadline was set for the students right in the first class.’
But the examples in (37)-(38) suggest that the benefactive subclass
needs to be distinguished from the prototypical NDA verbs whose
indirect object is a recipient: