On quirky subjects and the person restriction in Icelandic and Italian

In this paper, I show that Italian impersonal si constructions with verb-object agreement and Icelandic quirky dative constructions have much in common: of them the verb agrees with a Nominative object and they both exhibit a person restriction on the object, which can only be 3rd person. I present evidence that Italian impersonal si constructions are actually quirky dative constructions and that the person restriction on the object is caused by the presence of the reflexive impersonal si in Italian and by the reflexive suffix –st in Icelandic.