Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 73

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Það rignir þágufalli á íslandi
For the ditransitive verb afhenda N(D)A ‘hand over,’ the theme is
marked accusative, unlike for the root verb henda ND ‘throw’, pos-
sibly because physical movement is not necessarily involved, as
illustrated in the following mid-16th century (1545) example from
OH:
(74) vændizt sira Stephan að sira Oddur hefði af[h]ent sier vilianliga
stadinn
‘Rev. Stephan expected that Rev. Oddur would tum the place(A)
over to him willingly.’
Here the semantics rather than the case-assigning properties of the
stem seems to determine the case frame. See section 4.8.1 for discus-
sion of prefixed verbs.
This semantic classification often gives rise to case altemations: an
object which undergoes movement (change of location) is marked
dative; otherwise the object is accusative:
(75) Dative object undergoing movement:
drulla málningunni ‘drip paint’
moka snjónum ‘shovel the snow’
raka heyi saman ‘rake the hay up’
skjóta kúlunni ‘shoot the bullet’
skutla skutlinum ‘throw the harpoon’
smala fénu ‘gather the sheep’
þeyta laufunum burt ‘fling the leaves a
Accusative object:
drulla e-ð út ‘soil something’
moka tröppurnar ‘shovel the steps’
raka garðinn/túnið ‘rake the yard/
field’
skjóta fuglinn ‘shoot the bird’
skutla hvalinn ‘harpoon the whale’
smala heiðina ‘rid the heath of sheep’
’ þeyta rjómann ‘whip the cream’
Many verbs work similarly (see Jóhanna Barðdal 1992 for further dis-
cussion): ausa ‘ladle, scoop, pour’, hrœra (saman) ‘stir (together)’,
’ykkja ‘pull, pleat’, sópa ‘sweep’, smyrja ‘smear, spread’. Jóhanna
Farðdal notes that the dative case frame seems to require a locative
(directional) adverbial.
As noted earlier, Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson observes that denominal
verbs usually govem accusative on an object which denotes the loca-
tum (lecture notes, 7 April, 1999, based on Kristín M. Jóhannsdóttir
1996:111);