Cover not available

In:Historical Linguistics 2023: Selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics,Heidelberg, 4-8 September 2023
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371] 2026
► pp. 338–365

The diachrony of anticausative strategies in Icelandic

 | University of Iceland
 | University of Iceland
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
In Icelandic, a language characterized by rich inflection, different morpho­syntactic strategies used to form anticausatives are productive in different periods. Moreover, shifts in anticausativization strategies coincide with factors in other domains of grammar. Our results show that, in general, morphological marking with anticausatives is preferred over an unmarked (labile) option, leading us to propose a hierarchy of the strategies for Present-Day Icelandic. Various conflicting factors, however, create a micro-level tension in the grammar, affecting the productivity of the different anti­causa­ti­vi­zation strategies. Thus, Nominative Substitution replaces oblique subjects with case-preserving anti­causatives and the otherwise very productive “middle” suffix -st- reaches a point of saturation due to its multi­func­tion­ality, leaving the morphologically unmarked option as a viable one in some cases.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Anticausative strategies
  • 3.The chronology of the anticausative strategies
    • 3.1Strategy I: Weak–Strong alternation
    • 3.2Strategy II: Na-verbs
    • 3.3Strategy III: Case-Preserving Anticausativization (CPA)
    • 3.4Strategy IV: Morphologically unmarked
    • 3.5Strategy V: St-verbs
    • 3.6A hierarchy of anticausative strategies in Modern Icelandic
  • 4.Summary and conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (63)
References
Alexiadou, Artemis & Elena Anagnostopoulou. 2004. Voice morphology in the causative–inchoative alternation: Evidence for a non-unified structural analysis of unaccusatives. In Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopulou & Martin Everaert (eds.) The unaccusativity puzzle: Explorations of the syntax–lexicon interface, 114–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R. 1990. The grammar of Icelandic verbs in -st. In Maling & Zaenen (eds.), 235–273. San Diego: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arnarsdóttir, Marta María. 2018. Sagnaglíman. Þátíðarbeyging sterkra sagna hjá sjö og átta ára gömlum börnum. BA thesis, University of Iceland.
Barðdal, Jóhanna, Leonid Kulikov, Roland Pooth & Peter Kerkhof. 2020. Oblique anticausatives: a morphosyntactic isogloss in Indo-European. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 56.3. 413–449. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bentley, Delia. 2024. The causative alternation in Italian: A case study in the parallel architecture of grammar. In Edward Gibson & Moshe Poliak (eds.), From fieldwork to linguistic theory: A tribute to Dan Everett, 225–273. Berlin: Language Science Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernódusson, Helgi. 1982. Ópersónulegar setningar. Cand.mag. thesis, University of Iceland.
Blöndal, Sigfús. 1920–24. Íslensk-dönsk orðabók. Reykjavík: Verslun Þórarins B. Þorlákssonar. Supplement published 1963. 〈[URL]〉
Cennamo, Michela. 2022. Paths of change in the diachrony of anticausatives in Romance: the rise and fall of lability. Paper presented at International Conference on Historical Linguistics 2022 (ICHL25), Oxford, 1–5 August.
Cennamo, Michela, Thórhallur Eythórsson & Jóhanna Barðdal. 2015. Semantic and (morpho)syntactic constraints on anticausativization: Evidence from Latin and Old Norse-Icelandic. Linguistics 53.3. 677–402. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55 (1). 59–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav. 2002. The story of Scandinavian -s(t) retold: Grammaticalising a clitic to a derivational affix. Folia Linguistica Historica 23.1. 79–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eythórsson, Thórhallur. 2002. Changes in subject case-marking in Icelandic. In David W. Lightfoot (ed.), Syntactic effects of morphological change, 196–212. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eythórsson, Thórhallur. 2024. Reflexive and Middle in North Germanic. In Götz Keydana, Wolfgang Hock & Paul Widmer (eds.), Reflexivity and the Middle in Indo-European. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Friðjónsson, Jón G. 2005. Íslenskt mál, 48. Morgunblaðið. Issue 87, 2 April, 2005, 38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halldórsson, Halldór. 1982. Um méranir: Drög að samtímalegri og sögulegri athugun. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 4. 159–189.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harðarson, Jón Axel. 2017. The Morphology of Germanic. In Jared Klein, Brian Joseph & Matthias Fritz (eds.), Handbook of comparative and historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 2 (HSK 42.2), 913–954. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1987. Transitivity alternations of the anticausative type. Köln: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heusler, Andreas. 1967. Altisländisches Elementarbuch. 7th ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jónsdóttir, Margrét. 2015. From accusative to dative (via nominative): The case of fjölga ‘increase’ and fækka ‘decrease’ in Icelandic. In Martin Hilpert, Jan-Ola Östman, Christine Mertzlufft, Michael Riessler & Janet Duke (eds.), New Trends in Nordic and General Linguistics, 181–201. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Glasið brotnaðist, amma.” Viðskeyti eða ekki: Um sagnir sem enda á -na+st. Orð og tunga 20. 67–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli. 1997–98. Sagnir með aukafallsfrumlagi. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 19–20. 11–43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Not so quirky. On Subject Case in Icelandic. In Ellen Brandner & Heike Zinsmeister (eds.), New perspectives in Case Theory, 129–165. CSLI Publications: Stanford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Reflexive sig is an argument. Nordlyd 37. 99–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2003. Breytingar á frumlagsfalli í íslensku. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 25. 7–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Variation and change in subject case marking in Insular Scandinavian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 28.2. 223–245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kallulli, Dalina. 2007. Rethinking the Passive/ Anticausative Distinction. Linguistic Inquiry 38.4. 770–780. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karantzola, Eleni & Nicholaos Lavidas. 2014. On the relation between labilization and neuter gender: Evidence from the Greek diachrony. Linguistics 52.4. 1025–1060. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2009. Anticausativization. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27. 77–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krahe, Hans & Wolfgang Meid. 1967. Germanische Sprachwissenschaft: Wortbildungslehre. Vol. 3. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kulikov, Leonid & Nikolaos Lavidas. 2014. Introduction: Typology of labile verbs. Linguistics 52.4. 871–877.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, Beth. 1983. The Nature of Ergativity. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
. 1989. The Basque verbal inventory and configurationality. In László Marácz & Pieter Muysken (eds.), Configurationality: The typology of asymmetries, 39–62. Dordrecht: Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Magnússon, Ásgeir Blöndal. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maling, Joan. 2002. Það rignir þágufalli á Íslandi. Verbs with dative objects in Icelandic. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 24. 31–105.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maling, Joan & Annie Zaenen (eds.). 1990. Modern Icelandic syntax. Syntax and semantics 24. San Diego: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McGregor, William B. 2009. Typology of ergativity. Language and Linguistics Compass 3.1. 480–508. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Edith. 1978. On the distribution of ergative and accusative patterns. Lingua 45. 233–279. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nedoma, Robert. 2017. The documentation of Germanic. In Jared Klein, Brian Joseph & Matthias Fritz (eds.), Handbook of comparative and historical Indo-European linguistics. Vol. 2 (HSK 42.2), 875–888. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ONP = Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Den arnamagnæanske kommission (Ed.), Copenhagen. Retrieved 2024 from: [URL]
Ottósson, Kjartan G. 1986. Mörk orðmyndunar og beygingar: Miðmynd í nútímaíslensku. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 8. 63–119.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1988. A feature-based approach to thematic roles. In Victoria Rosén (ed.), Papers from the 10th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics 2, 135–50. Bergen: Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, University of Bergen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. The Icelandic middle voice. The morphological and phonological development. Doctoral dissertation, Lund University.
Ottosson, Kjartan G. 2008. The Old Norse Middle voice in the preliterary period: Questions of grammaticalization and cliticization. In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (eds.), Interdependence of diachronic and synchronic analyses, 185–219. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ottosson, Kjartan. 2013. The anticausative and related categories in the Old Germanic languages. In Folke Josephson & Ingmar Söhrman (eds.), Diachronic and typological perspectives on verbs, 329–381. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pooth, Roland, Peter Alexander Kerkhof, Lenoid Kulikov & Johanna Barðdal. 2019. The origin of non-canonical case marking of subjects in Proto-Into-European: accusative, ergative, or semantic alignment. Indogermanische Forschungen 124.1. 245–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ragnarsdóttir, Hrafnhildur. 1998. Að læra þátíð sagna. In Sigurður Konráðsson & Örnólfur Thorsson (eds.), Greinar af sama meiði, helgaðar Indriða Gíslasyni sjötugum, 255–276. Reykjavík: Rannsóknarstofnun Kennaraháskóla Íslands.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Málþroski leikskólabarna. Þróun orðaforða, málfræði og hlustunarskilnings milli fjögra og fimm ára aldurs. Netla, 〈[URL].〉
Ringe, Don. 2017. From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A linguistic history of English. Vol. 1). 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 2019. Verslunin opnar. 〈[URL]〉
. 2020. Þjóðarsátt um „þágufallssýki“. 〈[URL]〉
Sigurðardóttir, Sigríður Sæunn. 2024. Language forecasting: With focus on variation and change in Icelandic. Doctoral dissertation, Yale University.
Sigurðardóttir, Sigríður Sæunn & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2022. The emergence of oblique subjects: Oblique-case substitution and shift in anticausative strategy in Modern Icelandic. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 107. 47–82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2024. The emergence of oblique subjects: Identifiable processes in the history of Icelandic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1989. Verbal syntax and Case in Icelandic: In a comparative GB approach. Doctoral dissertation, Lund University. [Reprinted by the Linguistics Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, 1993.]
. 2006. The Nom/Acc alternation in Germanic. In Jutta M. Hartmann & László Molnárfi (eds.), Comparative studies in Germanic syntax, 13–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svavarsdóttir, Ásta. 1982. ‘Þágufallssýki’. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 4. 19–62.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thorbergsdóttir, Ágústa (ed.). 2024. Íðorðabankinn [A glossary of technical terms]. From glossary of computer terms. The Árni Magnússon Institute of Icelandic studies. Accessed October 29. 2024 at [URL]
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The Syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wood, Jim. 2015. Icelandic Morphosyntax and Argument Structure. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zaenen & Maling. 1990. Unaccusative, passive, and quirky case. In Maling & Zaenen (eds.), 165–185. [Originally published in Proceedings of WCCFL 3. 317–329, 1984.] Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä. 2019. Grammatical voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue