Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Page 70

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M. P. Barnes
imply that the mouth was so full of salt it formed a physical obstacle.
The only parallel my informants could come up with was fyri sukur vs.
fyri sukri. In the case of smoke, on the other hand, the contrast does
not seem to exist. In (168) fyri royki can refer either to the smoke itself
or the smoky atmosphere, the smokiness. It is tempting, in spite of
what is said under 4.7, to take the fyri phrase in (209) as a Causative:
the meaning of fyri is ‘because’ and it is followed by the accusative (a
close parallel could be found in (47), although there the negative is
only implied); the substitution of the dative introduces the notion of an
actual (physical) obstacle as distinct from a reason for not being able
to do something. And yet I am not quite sure. The nature of the obstruc-
tion in Obstructive phrases can vary considerably as (162-9) indicate,
and the only clear reason for forcing a Causative interpretation on (209)
seems to be the use of the accusative. But this begs the question of
whether there could not be, or whether it would not at least be sensible
to think in terms of accusative Obstructive phrases. I leave the reader
and the native speaker to judge.
The following example which contains a Presence phrase also intro-
duces matters of interest:
(210) hann ... skrivaði tær upp á talvuna fyri bprnunum
Here we have a contrast (though it cannot be minimal,cf. upp) with (81),
where the fyri phrase is Delimiting, and also with (83), where fyri +
acc. is Substitutive and means ‘instead of me’, ‘in my place’. As will be
seen, there is also a minimal semantic contrast between the accusative
phrases in (81) and (83). Such contrasts are common enough, eg:
(211) og tá skuldu vit eisini arbeiða fyri fremmandar fyri næstan
onga l0n (Substitutive vs. Causative)
(212) teir vóru stevndir fyri rættin (Motion) vs.
(213) ein kann skjótt verða stevndur fyri ólógliga hagagongd (Causa-
tive)
And with the dative: (133) (Presence) vs.
(214) hann syngur fyri durunum (Locational)
This raises the question of how important the acc./dat. distinction after
fyri really is. Clearly the lexical items involved as well as the general
context are often sufficient to decide the meaning. Thus, if in (213) I
substitute dative for accusative, I obtain an ungrammatical sentence, the