Dative case in Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese: Preservation and non-preservation

Abstract

This article investigates the morphosyntactic status of dative case in Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese. We hypothesize that these three languages represent three diachronic stages signalled synchronically by the degree of preservation or non-preservation of dative under movement. Thus, we explore the synchronic status of dative under passive movement and topicalization in the three languages, while simultaneously paying attention to the larger questions of diachronic preservation and non-preservation of dative. We suggest that our findings have interesting ramifications for the categorization of case as structural and non-structural in generative grammar.