Breytingar á frumlagsfalli í íslensku
ÚtdrátturChanges in Subject Case in IcelandicKeywords: subject case, Dative Substitution, language change, diffusion, social factors, syntax
In this paper it is argued that changes in subject case currently underway in Icelandic involve the replacement of irregular case by regular (structural/thematic) case. This takes place because the language learner fails to acquire irregular subject case. Thus, a change has occurred but its diffusion is subject to various external factors in the language community.
The main objective of this paper is to investigate the extent of these changes on the basis of a recent survey on subject case in Icelandic. The survey was conducted in 2001 comprising 845 eleven year old children. The main results can be summarized as follows:
First, a comparison with the survey by Ásta Svavarsdóttir (1982) indicates that substitution of dative case for an original accusative on experiencer subjects (Dative Substitution or ‘Dative Sickness’) has increased during the past two decades. The results suggest that Dative Substitution varies from one verb to another depending on the frequency of the verb and possibly also its semantics.
Second, the survey shows that the use of subject case is correlated with various social factors. Thus, Dative Substitution is most common among children whose mothers have only finished elementary school (grunnskóli), and least common among children whose mothers have a university education. The phenomenon is also more prevalent among boys than girls. Dative Substitution is widespread throughout Iceland but its occurrence seems to be least common in the Reykjavík area. Within this area Dative Substitution is most frequent in the eastern part of Reykjavík (Breiðholt, Árbær and Grafarvogur) and least frequent in the inner part of the capital.
Our study indicates that gender and education may have replaced geographical distribution as the most important factors in language variation in Iceland. This result calls for further studies on the correlation of social factors with current changes in Icelandic.
Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
Háskóla Íslands Árnagarði við Suðurgötu IS-101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND jj[at]hi.is Þórhallur Eyþórsson
Department of Linguistics University of Manchester Manchester, M13 9PL ENGLAND tolli[at]man.ac.uk | ||||
