Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2018, Page 95

úthlutun sagna. Að auki er sýnt fram á að breytingin breiðist út frá einu orði til annars í
samræmi við dreifingu málbreytinga í orðasafni (e. lexical diffusion).
summary
‘Semantically and syntactically conditioned changes
in Faroese prepositional phrases’
Keywords: semantically conditioned restructurings, accusative as default case, case loss,
prepositions, structural case, thematic case and idiosyncratic case, lexical diffusion
In this article I use the Case Directionality Hypothesis (CDH) to explain changes that
happen with certain prepositional phrases in Faroese (FA), and I show that the hypothesis
predicts in which direction the changes will go. This means that the changes go from the-
matic case to structural case and from idiosyncratic case to thematic case. Note that lexical
case includes idiosyncratic lexical case and thematic lexical case.
Thematic dative case is slowly disappearing from FA, and structural accusative case is
gaining ground. This change is an ongoing one. The result will presumably be that FA will
only have two cases, the nominative and an oblique case. In Modern FA, dative objects are
gradually being replaced by accusative objects (thematic case to structural case); this is in
accordance with other changes in the language, which show that the accusative stands
strong, as can be seen by the fact that it replaces the genitive in possession constructions
with complements in the accusative, which is a change from idiosyncratic lexical case to
structural case. The same happens when complements in the genitive are replaced by
accusative, as with the preposition ímillum where accusative occurs although locative-
dative would have been expected.
In spite of these changes, the dative does have a strong status as complement of other
dative prepositions as shown with examples of hjá ‘with’ and frá ‘from’, and studies of
IO/DO constructions show the same.
With regard to certain prepositions, two changes are presently happening in Modern
FA. One is that complex prepositional phrases with -fyri as their head are changing from
idiosyncratic accusative to thematic dative. The reason behind this change is that the
semantic role locative is associated with dative. The other change is one from thematic
dative case to structural accusative case. This occurs partly with NP complements of the
preposition nærhendis ‘close to’. This is an incipient change, which is expected given
changes otherwise observed in the language, namely that the structural case is gaining
ground. Generally it should be noted that the changes discussed here are in accordance
with the CDH that is intended to explain case changes with the complements of verbs.
Additionally it is shown that the change is one of lexical diffusion.
Hjalmar P. Petersen
Fróðskaparsetur Føroya, Føroyamálsdeildin
V.U. Hammershaimbs gøtu 22
FO-100 Tórshavn
hjalmar@setur.fo
Semantisk og syntaktisk styrede forandringer i færøske præpositionsfraser 95