At 4:56:11 PM on Monday, July 20, 2009, nikolai_sandbeck
wrote:

> I have trouble with understanding why fjárskiptis has to
> be in genetive. I look the word beiða up in the
> dictionary, and i found examples where it nouns is in
> genetive and other with dative.

> If anyone can it explain to me why fjárskiptis is in
> genetive, it would be very nice.

> En er Hrafnkell kom heim, beiddi hann föður sinn
> fjárskiptis, ok sagðisk hann búðstað vilja reisa sér.

If you look at the entry for <beiða> in Zoëga, you'll see
that it starts as follows:

beiða (-dda, -ddr), v. to ask, beg, request; b. e-n e-s,
or b. e-m (for one) e-s; ...

Here <e-n> is the abbreviation indicating a 'someone'
(accusative case), <e-s> is the abbreviation indicating
'something' (genitive case), and <e-m> is the abbreviation
indicating 'someone' (dative case). <Beiða e-n e-s> is 'to
ask someone (acc.) for something (gen.)'; <beiða e-m e-s> is
'to ask for something (gen.) for someone (dat.)'. In both
expressions the thing asked for is in the genitive. Your
sentence is an example of the first construction, with
<föður sinn>, the person of whom the request is made, in the
accusative and <fjárskiptis>, the thing requested, in the
genitive. This is simply the way cases are assigned for
this particular verb.

Brian