Ebook: An Analysis of Grammatical Relations and Case Marking in Icelandic

Publisher: University of California
Date: 2002
Pages: 167Icelandic presents a number of challenging morpho-syntactic phenomena.
Foremost among these is what has been labeled quirky case – e.g., accusative, dative, and genitive subjects, and nominative, dative and genitive objects. It is clear, through a variety of criterial tests that will be discussed, that non-nominative constituents may meet the functional definitions of subjecthood. Conversely, nominative constituents may meet none of the criteria for subjecthood. Since we do not have the comprehensive set of tests for objecthood that we have for subjecthood, discerning the status of Icelandic objects and the rules of case marking on objects poses challenges.