Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 99

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Það rig/iir þágufalli á íslandi
which undergo movement. Particularly interesting is the correlation
between dative case on the object and the occurrence of a directional
PP or adverb, which can be seen as a direct consequence of the seman-
tic generalization involving movement. Dative case is also used on the
complements of two classes of normally intransitive verbs when used
transitively: (i) verbs denoting heavenly and bodily emissions, and (ii)
verbs taking cognate objects. Some uses of dative in Icelandic, includ-
ing the case on cognate objects, correspond to instrumental case in
Slavic.
Thus to a limited degree, the case-marking on verbal complements
in Icelandic is semantically predictable. Whereas the association of
dative with goal arguments of various kinds, including recipients,
experiencers and beneficiaries is cross-linguistically common, the
association of dative case with theme arguments is cross-linguistical-
ly remarkable (see Maling 2001). It is noteworthy that dative associ-
ated with certain subclasses of theme arguments, especially nominals
that undergo movement, seems to be spreading. Jóhannes Gísli
Jónsson (1997-98) hypothesizes that lexical case on subjects in
Icelandic may be either thematic case or idiosyncratic case; he
assumes that dative on goals and experiencers is thematic case, where-
as dative on themes and patients is idiosyncratic. Given this distinc-
hon, he observes that idiosyncratic case on grammatical subjects is
losing ground in Icelandic, whereas thematic case is gaining ground.
The results of this study indicate that the distinction between themat-
lc and idiosyncratic lexical case needs to be modified for grammatical
objects, since dative case on themes is not always idiosyncratic on
grammatical objects as it is for grammatical subjects.
ABBREVIATIONS AND REFERENCES
Note that Icelandic authors are listed under their first name, as is the standard in
Icelandic references (cf. also the references in the text).
= Ámi Böðvarsson (ed.) 1990 [an Icelandic dictionary]
Cleasby-Vigfússon = Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon and William
Craigie 1957