Orð og tunga - 2020, Page 79

Einar Sigurðsson og Heimir Viðarsson: Um líka í fornu máli 67
Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir. 2008. Types of DPs in OV order. Studia Linguistica
62/3:261–286.
Þórhallur Eyþórsson og Jóhanna Barðdal. 2005. Oblique subjects: A common
Germanic inheritance. Language 81:824–881.
Lykilorð
skiptisagnir, (ó)samhverfar sagnir, tilbrigði, fallmörkun, rökliðaformgerð
Keywords
alternating verbs, (a)symmetric verbs, variation, case marking, argument structure
Abstract
In Modern Icelandic the verb líka ‘like’ occurs with a subject in the dative case and
an object in the nominative case. It has been argued that this was also the case in Old
Icelandic. In this paper we argue that in contrast to Modern Icelandic, the nominative
argument of líka could also constitute the subject during the Old Icelandic period and
the dative argument the object. More specifically, we maintain that the verb líka was
an alternating (or symmetric) verb where the nominative and the dative argument
could raise to the subject position, whereas in Modern Icelandic only the dative is
able to raise to the subject position. In other words, we argue that a change in the
argument structure of the verb has taken place such that líka has changed from being
an alternating (symmetric) verb to an asymmetric oblique subject verb. The main
argument that is used to substantiate this claim comes from control infinitives in Old
Icelandic, taking on the form in (i):
(i) girntiz meirr at líka einum guði en mönnum
desired.mid more to PRO.nom like.inf alone.dat god.dat than men.dat
‘(He) desired more to please God alone than men.’ (Æv 150.15)
Based on a generative analysis of syntactic structure, that the dative argument func­
tions syntactically as the object, in addition to discussing other potential evidence
based on word order. When the nominative argument is the subject, the meaning of
líka is sometimes closer to that of English please than like. We also discuss how this
might be accounted for.
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