Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 70

68
Joan Maling
(66) a.
b.
slefa munnvatni ‘drool saliva(D)’
vs. slefa sig út ‘dirty oneself(A) drooling’
skíta peningum ‘shit money(D)’
vs. skíta e-ð út ‘make something(A) dirty’, skíta e-n út ‘put
somebody(A) down’
This appears to constitute a semantic subregularity; the subclass of
verbs meaning ‘make dirty’ all seem to govem accusative. Other
examples include bía e-ð út ‘soil something’, drulla e-ð út ‘soil some-
thing’, sóða e-ð út ‘dirty something, make a mess somewhere’.23
Verbs referring to the bearing of young or the laying of eggs gen-
erally govem dative:
(67) verpa eggjum Tay eggs’; unga út klekja eggjum, ‘hatch’; bera
lömbum/kálfi ‘bear lambs/a calf’; gjóta hvolpumlkettlingum ‘bear
pups/kittens’; gjóta hrognum ‘spawn roe’; kasta folaldi ‘foal’
Note that the verb bera ‘bear’, said of cows and sheep, govems dative
in this sense even though it govems accusative in the sense of ‘carry’:
(68) a. Ærin bar
ewe-the bore
b. Kýrin bar
cow-the bore [a]
c. Þjónninn bar
waiter-the(N) bore
tveimur Iömbum/*tvö lömb.
two lambs(D/*A)
svörtum kálfi/*svartan kálf.
black calf(D/*A)
*matnum/matinn á borð.
food-the(*D/A) to [the] table.
Note that kasta and verpa (cf. the list in (67)) have ‘throw’ as their
basic meaning, in which sense they also govem dative, as does gjóta
in the expression gjóta augunum til e-s Took sideways at someone’
(lit. “bear eyes(D) towards”) govems dative. Overall, nonhuman
objects of these verbs of bearing are almost always dative. However,
the verbs used for humans,fæða ‘give birth’, eiga barn ‘have a child’
and ala (afkvæmi) ‘bear (offspring)’, govern accusative. Perhaps this
23 Although no motion seems to be involved, the verb sóða ‘dirty, make a mess’
govems dative in the sense sóða e-u a/‘make sloppy work of something’.