Subjecthood and argument structure of synonymous Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat verbs across German and Icelandic

This paper investigates a set of 15 Icelandic verbs licensing both a nominative and a dative argument, recently analysed in the literature, comparing them with a corresponding set of 15 German verbs. The Icelandic dataset consists of verbs selecting for three different argument structures: (a) ordinary Nom-Dat verbs, (b) non-alternating Dat-Nom verbs and (c) alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat verbs. The German dataset contains either (near-)synonyms or cognates to the Icelandic verbs. One of our most important findings is that apparent Dat-Nom verbs in German, like gefallen ‘please, like’, are in fact alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat verbs in that language. That is, these verbs can either instantiate the Dat-Nom or the Nom-Dat argument structure. This conclusion is supported by word order counts, which show a major difference between alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat verbs and ordinary Nom-Dat verbs across both German and Icelandic. We also examine the set of alternating verbs across both languages statistically using a conditional inference tree. The differences between Icelandic and German especially play out in configurations involving pronouns, whereas, for double NPs, we identify the same additional factors as have already been identified for the monolingual (Icelandic) dataset, namely animacy, length and (in)definiteness.