“Giving Someone Freedom” in Old Icelandic in Minimalist Syntactic Terms

Abstract

The present paper discusses the word order alternatives attested with OIce double object constructions of the type gefa einhverjum frelsi ‘give someone freedom’ found in the ONP (https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php) within a largely Minimalist syntactic framework (Chomsky (1995) and beyond). Specifically, this study draws on theoretical assumptions borrowed from sources in the area of the movement approach to modified word order types in the early Germanic languages (e.g. Eythórsson (1995); Haugan (2001)). The paper starts off with an analysis of base-generated post-VP indirect object (Dat) – frelsi (Acc) order and proceeds to an account of modified orders derived by VP-internal Scrambling, short-distance Scrambling, and Topicalization, wherein the direct object frelsi is claimed to have moved leftwards from its base position. The author of the paper argues that leftward dislocation takes frelsi to various target positions, i.e. an adjunction position in the left periphery of VP (resulting from VP-internal Scrambling), an adjunction position in the left periphery of vP (as a result of shortdistance Scrambling), the specifier position of CP (consequent upon Topicalization). The objective of the paper is to analyze the conditions, under which the above displacement operations apply, the structural configurations, derived by leftward movement and the properties of the ex-situ positions, targeted by frelsi.