# Icelandic: leiðast



## Alxmrphi

Hi all,

I'm reading a book about syntax in English, and (as often happens) examples from Icelandic are used to back up certain claims (because of the fact Icelandic has a lot of case marking to show different relationships between words).

Anyway, I just wanted to check some things with you.
I think the author / publisher has made a mistake anyway in the printing but I just wanted to check.*Strákarnir *leiðist *öllum* í skóla
The.boys.dat bored all.dat in school
‘The boys all got bored in school’
(Sigurðsson 1991, p. 331)​Which it says the first word is in the dative case, which it is not.

1) Is this sentence correct or not? Should it be *strákunum* instead to be correct?*Str**á**karnir *vonast til [að PRO leiðast ekki *ö**llum* í skóla]
The.boys.nom hoped for [to PRO bore not all.dat at school]
The boys hoped to not all get bored at school
(Sigurðsson 1991, p. 331)​
So is this follow-up sentence also correct?
Basically the discussion is about floating quantifiers and they are putting forward the statement that there is a null subject that is secretly-dative, and it doesn't match up to the subject in the main clause, but leiða has made the invisible subject have dative case (and that's what *öllum* is referring to).

So given the lack of precision (and my own need to check it out with natives), can you please confirm if the following two sentences are correct Icelandic:
*
**Strákarnir vonast til að leiðast ekki öllum í skóla.*
*Strákarnir leiðist öllum í skóla*.  (I think it should be *Strákunum)*
​The book also says these are in the past tense, but I don't think they are, can anyone confirm?
It looks like it means:
*
The boys hope to not all get bored in school.
The boys get bored in school*.

Also, I am just sure about the 3rd person singular in the 2nd example, if it is supposed to be dative, then does that stay 3rd person singular (because it's impersonal) or should it be -ast like in the first example?
*
EDIT*.

I think I've written my question in a complicated way.
Can anyone just put ticks  / crosses  in the sentences below, I will be able to understand the answer then:

*Strákarnir vonast til að leiðast ekki öllum í skóla.*
*Strákarnir leiðist öllum í skóla*.
*Strákarnir leiðast öllum í skóla*.
*Strákunum* *leiðist öllum í skóla.
**Strákunum* *leiðast öllum í skóla.

Takk fyrir
*


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## Tjahzi

Firstly, regarding the tense/person of the verb in the first sentence it does indeed seem to be present rather than past (source).

However, regarding the verb, I'd say the following: considering that it is the middle voice that is being used here, there must be a "real" subject, that is, nominative, which obviously is the case with _strákarnir_. However, since they are also the object, determiners such as _all_ should then be in dative. I'm not sure if a pronoun in the appropriate case is necessary with the middle voice, but I really don't think so.

I find the explanation of "there is an invisible subject" to be a bit suspect. I always believed the middle voice to be somewhat reciprocal and as such, the subject being the grammatical and logical subject and then also the logical object. 


Regarding the second sentence, it again seems the verb is present (_vonuðust _would be the correct past form). Concerning whether _leiðist _or _leiðast_ should be used, one must know that the latter is the infinitive, which is then to be used in sentences such as "*Strákarnir vonast til að leiðast ekki öllum í skóla". *Hence, if we assume the first sentence is correct (ignoring the obviously incorrect tense), I'd say that this last one is also correct.

So, a last guess.

*Strákarnir vonast til að leiðast ekki öllum í skóla. *
*Strákarnir leiðist öllum í skóla*. 
*Strákarnir leiðast öllum í skóla*. 
*Strákunum* *leiðist öllum í skóla.* 
*Strákunum* *leiðast öllum í skóla. *


But of course I'm just guessing. 

(On a side note, I find it odd that _skóli _should be indefinite. Please confirm/deny that, natives.)


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Tjahzi, 



> (On a side note, I find it odd that _skóli _should be indefinite. Please confirm/deny that, natives.)


Really? It's indefinite in English as well, that's why I guess it seems fine for me.



> However, regarding the verb, I'd say the following: considering that it  is the middle voice that is being used here, there must be a "real"  subject, that is, nominative, which obviously is the case with _strákarnir_. However, since they are also the object, determiners such as _all_  should then be in dative. I'm not sure if a pronoun in the appropriate  case is necessary with the middle voice, but I really don't think so.


But * að leiðast *is a quirky-subject verb which requires the subject to be in the dative, not nominative (see). It is not technically the middle voice here, as it would normally be to have a different meaning from a non-middle voice, this verb only exists in this form with the meaning 'to get bored', it can't be used without it so I don't think it technically counts as functioning as the middle voice (though it behaves like it).

I wasn't aware in other middle voice verbs that the verb is in the nominative and the quantifier (i.e. all) in the dative, wouldn't that then mean that the following was correct: *öllum strákarnir vonast*... I don't think that's right, but I'm not sure. I think quantifies usually agree with the subject of the verb. I think this case is special because it is providing some evidence that here it can't be linked with _strákarnir_*.* I think determiners/quantifiers would usually agree in case with the middle voice.

I think the book did make an error and the subject of the shorter sentence should be in the dative.

I guess we should wait for some natives to confirm now 
Thanks for your input.


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## Alxmrphi

I managed to find the original reference, it's here:

Icelandic Case-Marked PRO and the Licencing of Lexical Arguments (Halldór Sigurðsson, 1991)

And (as you can see from page 5) the author did get it wrong, they also got the past tense wrong as the original sentence appears as:*Strákunum* leiddist *öllum* í skóla.
the boys(D) bored all(Dpl.m.) in school.
​I think I found the answer about _vonast_ in this case as well.

_Strákarnir vonast til að (P)* komast* *allir* í skóla.
Strákarnir vonast til að (P) *vanta* ekki *alla* í skólann.
Strákarnir vonast til að (P) *leiðast* ekki *öllum *í skóla.
Strákarnir vonast til að (P) verða *allra* *getið* í ræðunni._

It's the verb in the second clause that determines the declension of the quantifier _*allur*_.
Now I wish I could properly get my head around what that article is saying in more detail 

(Edit: Tjahzi, you were right about it being an infinitive by the way! I was wrong thinking it was 3rd person plural).


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## kepulauan

I don't know what the author is trying to say. It might be a failed attempt to explain something incredibly simple.

But just to make one thing clear (if it isn't already)...
_"Öllum"_ in the first example is a part of the subject. It could as well be rearranged (no change in case) as "_*öllum strákunum* leiðist í skóla"_.

_"Strákarnir leiðist"_ could mean "_the boys shall hold hands_", and if you put "að" in front of it, "..._that the boys get led (into life of crime)_" but that is unimportant.

*Strákarnir vonast til að leiðast ekki öllum í  skóla.
*- or even better: _Strákarnir vonast til að *þeim leiðist* ekki öllum í   skóla._
 *Strákarnir leiðist öllum í skóla*.
*Strákarnir leiðast öllum í skóla*.
*Strákunum* *leiðist öllum í skóla.
**Strákunum* *leiðast öllum í skóla

*Of course these might not be "correct" if the objective was to explain something different, like an "ideal" cross-language construction.


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## Alxmrphi

Takk pollodia,

I had guessed those would be the right answers, so thanks for confirming it!

Basically, PRO is part of theoretical syntax, it's a null pronoun that holds syntactic features and appears in infinitive clauses. The history of it is very complicated but this article was just about supplying some evidence from Icelandic that PRO is case-marked, and it is responsible for giving *allur *its dative plural case in constructions like these.
Something I'm glad you pointed out is that you can add in *þeim*, which would effectively replace PRO with a lexical subject, and the lexical subject is assigned dative case here, so when it's not present (and PRO is), it is also dative. That fits in well with the stuff I'm reading anyway.

Thanks again all.


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## kepulauan

Ah, so the invisible hand isn't so invisible after all.

Oh I just noticed it is from a journal, not a book. Makes the past tense claim even stranger.


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## Alxmrphi

The error was from a book, where I got the original quotation from (Analysing English Sentences - A Minimalist Approach), but Sigurðsson's article was from a journal yes, Linguistic Enquiry (that one doesn't have the past tense error in it).


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## sindridah

Before i write this i want to let you know that i haven't really read very well the other answers.


Leiðast can mean two different things. Hold hands or indeed bored

*Strákarnir leiðast öllum í skóla*. Can indeed be correct but use it in a slightly different way.

*Strákarnir leiðast ( á leiðinni ) í skólann* The boys are holding each other hand while going to school.

Just wanted to add that up 

And apologise if it have already be mentioned


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## Alxmrphi

Sindri, don't worry.

Pollodia mentioned this usage, but the way you put it (with á leiðinni) makes it clear what the sense means with that part added. I think if I heard / read the sentence with that in, I might have been confused still thinking it meant 'get bored', but now I am more aware that, in different contexts, this verb can have different meanings.

So thank you for pointing them out.
I feel like I know this verb quite well and I'm less likely to mistake it!

You Icelanders (i.e. Pollodia / Sindri) help learners of Icelandic so much, it's really great that you respond to our requests for help.
Please continue to do so!

Takk kærlega fyrir!


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