Object experiencers and impersonal expletives

The goal of the project is to investigate the syntactic properties of expletive constructions involving two postverbal arguments in Scandinavian.

The central aim is to show that the observed differences between Icelandic and the other Scandinavian languages does not come from differences in case morphology and verbal agreement.

In the project Scandinavian constructions of the following type are considered, i.e. expletive construction where all arguments follow the main verb:

(i) Det blev givet pojken presenter (it was given the boy presents)
(ii) Det har hänt mig en olycka (there has happened me an accident)
(iii) Det förvånar mig att du inte kan isländska (it surprises

Characteristic for (i) is that the participle does not agree with the post-verbal argument (*Det blev givna pojken presenter). Characteristic for (i)-(iii) is that the lower of two arguments must be indefinite (*Det hände mig den stora olyckan igår).

The traditional assumption is that since (i) is ungrammatical in Icelandic (given that the lower argument is nominative and that the verb agrees), the differences between Mainland Scandinavian and Icelandic have to do with argument licensing and intervention. Another assumption is that the lower argument should be considered to be a subject since it obeys a definiteness restriction in expetive clauses. A closer look at Icelandic reveals that examples similar to (i) can be found:

(iv) Það var gefið stráknum gjafir (there was given the boy presents)

Such examples not only show that there really is less difference than assumed between Swedish and Icelandic with respect to argument licensing and intervention, but also that the actual differences we see do not relate to morphological case and verbal agreement.