Chapter 8 discusses alternative theories of case, in particular the few prior attempts to deal with the Faroese dative–accusative pattern (Woolford 2007, Jónsson 2009, Asarina 2011). Further survey data from Faroese are presented alongside engagement with these alternatives; it is argued that while these theories could be altered to achieve empirical coverage, they will miss generalisations and overgenerate in comparison to the OLG approach. Woolford (2007) deals with exceptions to Burzio’s Generalisation (Burzio 1986); where Woolford’s account runs into problems is the conflation of abstract and morphosyntactic case: the case-hierarchy constraints alone do not explain the possibility of mismatches between thematic structure, argument structure and case-marking on arguments. Second, an idea proposed by Jónsson (2009), built upon by Asarina (2011), is discussed:‘covert’ nominative case. The basic idea is not dissimilar to abstract [+HR] case instantiated in morphosyntax as the case borne by subject position; however, crucial differences render the covert nominative account undesirably over-flexible. Further survey data are presented with respect to purported nominative ‘objects’, showing that such sentences are unacceptable in contemporary Faroese and that the data are inconsistent with Asarina (2011).

This chapter focuses on an illustrative phenomenon that has presented challenges for previous theories: non-nominative subjects. A summary of preceding literature is given, highlighting the relevant subjecthood properties of the Icelandic preverbal datives, as well as the subject-licensing syntactic positions in that language. A contrast is then drawn with similar dative arguments in German, concluding that the German obliques do not behave as subjects with respect to control properties, and do not occupy Spec,TP like the Icelandic datives. Before investigating the subjecthood of the Faroese datives, a detailed overview of what is currently known of Faroese clause structure is presented to establish the evidence for argument-licensing positions in the language. The standard subjecthood tests are applied to the Faroese dative-experiencer predicates, which demonstrate that the Faroese datives behave very similarly to those in Icelandic with respect to subjecthood properties. Given that the dative arguments in such sentences appear to be true subjects, and therefore the subject licensing position of Spec,TP seems to be the same in both Faroese and Icelandic, the differences in object case and number agreement with a plural object remain to be explained. This is explored in Chapters 3–7.

The introduction presents a general discussion of syntactic theories, contrasting transformational approaches with those that adopt feature-structural representations to show how they provide differing cognitive models of the human language faculty. The three key components of the OLG framework – Linking Theory (LT), Optimality Theory (OT) and Competing Grammars (CG) – are briefly laid out. These are motivated by phenomena that necessitate multiple levels of case, linking between levels that permits mismatches in some grammars, a means of restricting the linking apparatus while still capturing the data, and a cogent account of morphosyntactic variation. One such phenomenon is introduced: case-marking facts in Insular Scandinavian. The dative–nominative Icelandic predicates are contrasted with the Faroese dative–accusative pattern, along with plural number agreement with the object in Icelandic versus non-agreement in Faroese. Next, an overview is presented of the motivation for each theoretical component of OLG, in turn outlining the advantages of LT, OT and the CG hypothesis. The introduction concludes with an outline of the specific empirical findings from surveys conducted on the Faroe Islands and Iceland, including quirky case predicates and passives, followed by an overview of the book’s structure.

Chapter 4 zooms in on dative-subject predicates in Faroese and presents new survey data from the Faroe Islands and Iceland. The preceding literature on Faroese non-nominative subjects is reviewed before the Faroese and Icelandic surveys on quirky case monotransitives are described in detail. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to case-assignment, agreement and word order, and the author’s proposed analysis is presented along with a factorial typology. Two Faroese surveys and one Icelandic survey testing possible object positions in quirky case sentences are discussed. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the structural object position of nominative arguments in Icelandic, and that of accusatives in Faroese, is the same regular object position of nominative–accusative case frames. On the other hand, the results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that the object position is different between the two languages (and hence that such a difference is responsible for the difference in case-marking). These conclusions are discussed in detail in the OLG analysis section, which attributes the difference to constraint interaction, particularly a different ranking of a pair of constraints enforcing structural object case (accusative) and agreement with a nominative argument, respectively.

Chapter 6 presents new data on Faroese personal and impersonal passives, in addition to a discussion of case preservation and availability of passive with the dative-subject verbs. First, data from further Faroese surveys are investigated. The analysis demonstrates that the proposed constraints regulating the passive, here simply the addition of PARSE, covers all relevant sentence types in both Faroese and Icelandic personal passives, and with DEP and ARGSP also the impersonal passives. The argumentation builds on Kiparsky (2013), providing additional empirical support for the Linking Theory approach. An important finding is that the facts of case substitution in the active and case non-preservation in the passive are related: it is argued that there are preserving versus non-preserving grammars, represented by the two competing rankings. Speakers have access to both rankings, and choice of verb strongly predicts which grammar is activated. This approach predicts patterns that emerge from the constraint rankings themselves. The non-preserving grammar (activated, for example, with uses of the verb ‘like’) implies availability of passive and nominative substitution, both of which hold true; likewise, the preserving grammar predicts unavailability of passive and case substitution, which again turn out to be true for the verb ‘need’.