Thórhallur Eythórson (University of Iceland)

Place: SH Grupperom P

        Time: Monday September 27., 15.15–17.00

Title: The Faroese Experimental Kitchen: Changes in Case Marking in the Scandinavian Passive

The objective of this paper is to illustrate some changes that have taken place in the case system of Faroese, in comparison with Icelandic on the one hand and Norwegian and other Mainland Scandinavian languages on the other hand. First, with a number of verbs, nominative is substituted for oblique case (dative) with the subject of the passive, i.e. oblique case is not preserved in passive. Secondly, accusative is substituted for nominative with the direct object of ditransitive verbs in passive. Both of these changes have been described in the literature (e.g. Thráinsson et al. 2004), but they are more extensive than previously thought. Not much has been written about the third type of change that will be discussed here: the emergence of an impersonal construction reminiscent of the so-called New Passive in Icelandic, in which accusative case is preserved (e.g. Það var barið mig 'It was hit me'). This construction has limited distribution in Faroese and seems to occur with only a few verbs, in particular ditransitives (e.g. Tað bleiv givið gentuni telduna 'It was given the girl the computer'). In this talk I will back up my claims with results from extensive surveys which were conducted in the Faroe Islands in 2008 and 2009. It will be shown that the changes in Faroese are similar to changes in other Scandinavian and Germanic languages, the nature of which has been debated by linguists. In this way, contemporary Farose can be regarded as a kind of experimental kitchen for linguists which can give them invaluable insight into change in action.