Structural and lexical case

In many languages with nominal case marking, two types of case assignment can be recognized, structural case and lexical case. The former is assigned according to the structural position in the sentence, the latter is assigned by specific lexical items. The nominative is therefore clearly a structural case; it is assigned to the subject position, and it presupposes a finite verb in the clause. If there is no finite verb in the clause the nominative is replaced by the accusative, as shown in (9a). If, on the other hand, a NP is moved from a non-subject to a subject position, it acquires the nominative case, as in the passive:

(10) a. síðan var sett borð ok gefinn þeim matr since was set.neu.n table.n and given.m.n them.d food.n ‘Then the table was laid and they were given food’ (Eg 132.9) b. at gefa honum mat

to give him.d food.a ‘to give him food’ (Finnb 12.23)

The nominative subject matr of the passive sentence (10a) corresponds to the accusative object mat of the active (10b).

The case that interacts with the nominative in these processes is invariably the accusative. What corresponds to the subject of a non-finite verb is in the accusative, as in (9a), and only an accusative object may correspond to the nominative in the passive. While (11b), a partial quotation from (10a), is a possible passive version of (11a), (11c) would be ungrammatical.

(11) a. hon gaf þeim mat she gave them.d food.a ‘She gave them food’

b. var gefinn þeim matr was given.m.n them.d food.n ‘Food was given them’

c. *váru þeir gefnir mat were.3p they.m given.p.m.n food.a ‘They were given food’

The accusative object of an active transitive verb like the one in (10b) thus changes its case when it moves out of its object position in the passive. The accusative is therefore also a structural case, being assigned by default to poten- tial subjects that are not assigned nominative case, and to objects that are not assigned a lexical case.

The other possible cases that can be assigned to complements are the dative and the genitive. Certain verbs, prepositions and adjectives govern the dative or the genitive, as in (4–8) above. These are therefore lexical cases. A lexical case does not change through grammatical processes, such as the passive, as shown by (10–11), and by passive sentences like the following:

(12) a. var skotit spjóti úr liði Guðmundar ríka

was shot.neu.n spear.d from army.d Gudmund.g powerful.def ‘A spear was hurled from Gudmund the Powerful’s forces’ (Nj 373.6) b. þess manns mundi hefnt verða

that man.g would avenged.neu.n become ‘That man would be avenged’ (Eg 74.13)

The picture may not be quite as clear as this, however. Certain verbs, espe- cially those which are traditionally referred to as ‘impersonal’, may take a lexical accusative. There is thus no passive counterpart to (13) with a nominative NP corresponding to the accusative in the active.

(13) þat dreymdi mik that.n dreamt me.a ‘I dreamt that. . .’ (Gunnl 4.5)

Furthermore, accusative NPs governed by prepositions are never raised to subject in passive constructions, and they have a semantic role different from that of the dative, as can be seen by contrasting (14a) and (14b). The accusative in (14a) should therefore also be considered a lexical case, just like the dative in (14b).

(14) a. gengu þeir á bœinn Rimul went.3p they.m on farm.a-the Rimul ‘They went to the Rimul farm’ (Hkr I.351.1) b. hann bjó á Býnesi

he lived on Bynes.d ‘He lived at Bynes’ (Hkr I.348.13)

On the other hand, the genitive in NPs may also be considered a structural case, since it is assigned automatically to structural positions within the NP regardless of semantic role or function (cf. 4.2).

3.2

Nouns

Nouns belong to either a strong or a weak stem class. Weak nouns are bisyllabic (or trisyllabic) and end in a vowel in all cases in the singular. The number of syllables in a strong noun may vary depending on its case, and some strong nouns may end in a consonant. Both of these major groups contain several declensional classes.

The stem class determines the form of affixes on the noun, but it is not an important category in the synchronic grammar of Old Norse, and it plays no role in the syntax. Gender, however, determines agreement on dependent words. Nouns have inflectional forms showing number and case.

There are three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. These are inher- ent properties of the noun. The gender can be partly, but not entirely, predicted from the meaning of the noun, and from the stem class which it belongs to. As expected, the gender of animate nouns referring to a being of a particular sex, normally has the corresponding gender: thus maðr ‘man’, konungr ‘king’, herra ‘lord, master’, uxi ‘ox’ are masculine nouns, while kona ‘woman’, dróttning ‘queen’, frú ‘lady, wife’, kú ‘cow’ are feminine nouns. There are a few exceptions, though: víf ‘woman, wife’ is neuter, and kvennmaðr ‘woman’ is masculine.

Besides the unmarked singular form, most count nouns also have distinct

plural forms for each case (for some classes, singular and plural have identical

forms for some of the cases), and dependent adjectives and determiners agree with the noun for number as well as gender. Gender, number and case are usually marked jointly by a portmanteau morpheme. The actual form of the affix again depends on the stem class and gender.

Some suffixes are common to all nouns, regardless of gender and declen- sional class: the dative plural always ends in -um, and the genitive plural in -a. When the stem contains the vowel a, it is rounded by u-umlaut in the dative plural. The result iso in stressed (root) syllables and u in unstressed syllables: fognuðum ‘joys’.