Faroese is known to lie grammatically between Icelandic and the Mainland Scandinavian languages and dialects. One example of this is that, on the one hand, Faroese is like Icelandic in having a basically intact morphological four case system. On the other hand case-marking in Faroese is linked to clause function to a greater degree than in Icelandic – but to a lesser degree than in the Mainland Scandinavian standard languages. In Scandinavian Linguistics, it has long been an axiom that in the longer term the aforementioned four case system will be reduced in all varieties of the Scandinavian languages. The present thesis investigates if, and if so how, this expected development manifests itself in Senior High School graduation essays in Faroese from the period 1940–1999. A quantitative study forms the core of the thesis. The choice between the dative and other cases is related to eight syntactic variables whose effect on the choice of case is compared using methods from the variationist framework, among others. The results are partly surprising: the dative did not reduce in frequency from the 1940s to 1990s. There certainly is a tendency, however not a statistically significant one, that the dative is more often replaced by another case in contexts where the norm is to use the dative. On the other hand it also seems to become more common for the dative to be used hypercorrectly. Furthermore, the development is not linear, in that around the middle of the investigation period, the dative is used far more according to norms than otherwise. As expected, clause function is an important variable, but by the end of the period under investigation the placement of the nominal phrase within the clause becomes a surprisingly strong factor. It also becomes more important if the phrase takes the form of a first/second-person pronominal or not. The results are theoretically interpreted in the light of, firstly, Generative Grammar, and secondly Construction Grammar. The modification of certain terms is discussed, such as lexical case in Generative Grammar or usage-based model in Construction Grammar. The conclusion is that the linguistic descriptive models of these theories can only partly cover the tendencies to change that are observed. Other parts of the results are best explained using aspects of sociolinguistics. The conclusion is that case studies on a micro-level are valuable in order to evaluate and develop theories of linguistic variation and change at a macro-level.

Bei der Verarbeitung transitiver Sätze verwendet der Parser verschiedene Informationen, wie die Wortstellung, die Belebtheit und die Kasusmarkierung der Argumente, um eine Repräsentation der im Satz beschriebenen Situation aufzubauen. Frühere psycholinguistische Arbeiten zeigen, dass zwei belebte Argumente in einem Satz zusätzliche Verarbeitungskosten verursachen, außer wenn andere Informationen die Zuweisung der grammatischen und thematischen Rollen an die Argumente erlauben. In kasusmarkierenden Sprachen wie Deutsch ist einer dieser Hinweise die morphologische Kasusmarkierung. Die meisten zweistelligen deutschen Verben weisen ihren Argumenten das kanonische Nominativ-Akkusativ-Kasusmuster zu. Eine kleine Gruppe von zweistelligen Verben weist jedoch das nichtkanonische Nominativ-Dativ-Muster zu. Diese Verben unterschieden sich in ihrer Syntax und Semantik von kanonisch transitiven Verben und verursachen beim Satzverstehen höhere Verarbeitungskosten. In dieser Dissertation wird untersucht, wie die Verarbeitung von Argumentbelebtheitskontrasten während der Satzverarbeitung vom verbalen Kasuszuweisungsmuster moduliert wird. Ich stelle die Ergebnisse vier verschiedener Experimente vor (selbstgetaktetes Lesen, Blickbewegungsmessungen und EKP-Messungen). Alle experimentellen Methoden zeigen, dass der Effekt der Argumentbelebtheitskonstraste mit dem Effekt des verbalen Kasuszuweisungsmusters interagiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ein detaillierteres Bild der Satzverarbeitung und tragen zur Vereinigung der Transitivätsbegriffe in theoretischer Linguistik und Psycholinguistik bei. / During the comprehension of transitive sentences, the parser uses different kinds of information like word order, the arguments'' animacy status and case marking to build a representation of the situation the sentence describes. Previous research in psycholinguistics has shown that two animate arguments in a sentence cause additional processing costs, unless other cues allow the assignment of grammatical and thematic roles to the arguments. In case-marking languages like German, one of these cues is morphological case marking. While most German verbs assign the canonical nominative-accusative case pattern to their arguments, a small group of verbs assign noncanonical nominative-dative. These verbs differ from standard transitive verbs both in their syntax and their semantics, and are known to cause higher processing cost during comprehension. This dissertation examines how the processing of argument animacy contrasts during sentence comprehension is modulated by the verbal case marking pattern. I report the results of four different experiments, using self-paced reading time measurements, eyetracking and ERP measurements. All experimental methods show that the effect of argument animacy contrasts interacts with the effects of the verbal case marking pattern. The findings add further details to the existing knowledge about sentence comprehension, and combine perspectives on transitivity from theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics.