Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 96

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Joan Maling
as object, but so do many verbs in this semantic class which govem
accusative: myrða ‘murder’, hengja ‘hang’, skera ‘cut, slice’, aflífa
‘take somebody’s life’, hálshöggva ‘behead’, skjóta ‘shoot’, stinga
‘stab’. But the verb drepa can also take inanimate and abstract objects:
drepa tímann ‘kill time’. The objects of the verbs goveming dative are
generally animate. The following examples are perhaps personification:
nauðga málinul tónverkinu ‘rape the language/the piece of music’.
4.9.10 The verb brenna ‘bum’
In this final section, I mention some of the complexities conceming
the choice between dative and accusative on the object of one verb,
brenna ‘bum’. The taxonomy is due largely to Helgi Skúli Kjartans-
son (p.c.), who distinguishes six senses.
The basic mle is that when the object refers to fuel used for com-
bustion, it govems dative: brenna ruslinu/kolum ‘bum the garbage/
the coals(D)’. Jón G. Friðjónsson (class notes) has suggested that in
this sense, brenna belongs to the semantic class of verbs whose
objects undergo movement. Otherwise the object is accusative, for
example, if you bum down something large (and hence stationary):
brenna húsið/landið ‘bum the house/the land(A)’. The burning of let-
ters or other documents is a tricky area, as noted below. Overall, the
difference in case-marking seems to be marking an aspectual dimen-
sion, with accusative emphasizing the (potential) result of the buming.
Further details are provided below.
(132) brenna + dative on fuel used for combustion:
brenna ruslinu/kolumlolíunni ‘bum the trash/coal/oil’
Exceptions to this include combinations like brenna upp ‘bum up’ and
brenna til ösku ‘bum to ash’, as these take accusative even if the sub-
stance is a fuel:
(133) a. Hann brenndi allan eldiviðinn upp.
‘He bumed all the firewood(A) up.’
b. Hún brenndi kolin til ösku.
‘She bumed the coal to ashes.’ (cf. JHJ)