Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2023, Page 102

selected as the appropriate case here. Considering that the expressions in
both (12c) and (12d) are frequent in Old Icelandic texts, it is assumed that
the selection of the dative was made at the level of fixed phrases and was
not a pure substitution for the genitive by the dative. The dative occasion-
ally appears in fixed expressions, most likely because of the authors’
deliberate choice of an archaic style.
This may be further supported by the expression án þess (að) ‘without
(doing)’ (13a–d):
(13)a. An þeſſ vier giørum ydran, verda oſſ ecke
without that(G) we do repentance become us not
Syndernar fyrergiefnar.
sins-the forgiven
‘Unless we repent, our sins will not be forgiven.’
(Steinn Jónsson and Marteinn Arnoddsson 1719:61)
b. þú fórst, án þess að þú sæir til mín.
you left without that(G) that you see to me
‘you left without looking at me.’(ROH)
c. við gátum síðan talað saman án þess að nokkur
we could then talked together without that(G) that anyone
annar gæti heyrt símtalið
other could heard telephone-call-the
‘We could then talk together on the phone without being heard by
any other person.’ (MÍM)
d. Maðurinn horfði á Erlend án þess að segja orð.
man-the looked at Erlendur without that(G) to say word
‘The man looked at Erlendur without saying a word.’ (MÍM)
Icelandic has many conjunctions, such as af því að ‘because’ and vegna þess
að ‘because, since’, that consist of a preposition, a pronominal það in the
relevant case, and the complementizer or infinitive marker að (Stefán
Einarsson 1945:176, Höskuldur Þráinsson 2007:432). Following Halldór
Ármann Sigurðsson (1981), this kind of construction can be analyzed as
an adverbial phrase (in this case, án þess) followed by a subordinating con-
junction (að).12 For the construction án þess (að), there are no examples in
the Old Icelandic sources, such as MENOTA or ONP, nor any of the
dictionaries mentioned above. The data indicate that this type of con-
Yuki Minamisawa102
12 While the pronominal það can be omitted in expressions like til (þess) að ‘so that, in
order to’, it is obligatory in the case of án þess að.