Chapter published in:
Syntactic Variation in Insular Scandinavian
Edited by Höskuldur Thráinsson, Caroline Heycock, Hjalmar P. Petersen and Zakaris Svabo Hansen
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 1] 2017
► pp. 141–164

Avoiding Genitive in Icelandic

The genitive is a highly idiosyncratic case for arguments in Icelandic. Hence it is sometimes substituted for by other cases, i.e. by structural case of subjects (nominative) and direct objects (accusative) or by the productive lexical dative case in other instances. Genitive objects of adjectives can only be replaced by dative, since dative is the only regular case for objects of adjectives. Genitive can also be replaced by dative in certain contexts of agreement or concord. Dative is a better alternative in such instances than nominative and accusative because dative and genitive share the property of being KPs (Kase Phrases) in the sense of Bayer, Bader and Meng (2001). This analysis is independently supported by facts about noun inflection in Icelandic.

Keywords: case marking, idiosyncratic case, structural case, genitive, dative, case variation, Icelandic
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Case variation
    • 2.2Datives and genitives
  • 3.GA with arguments
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Subjects
    • 3.3Direct objects
    • 3.4Objects of adjectives
  • 4.Dative matching genitive
    • 4.1Predicative phrases with sem
    • 4.2Reduced relatives
    • 4.3Coordination and apposition
    • 4.4Analysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 July 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.1.06jon
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