From topic to object: Grammaticalization of differential object marking in Romanian

AbstractIn this paper, we provide new evidence for the hypothesis that in some languages, differential object marking (DOM) may have evolved from marking of the information structural category of topicality. While Iemmolo (2010) suggested that topic left-dislocation might have facilitated the evolution of DOM, and Dalrymple and Nikolaeva (2011) argued for systematic marking of secondary topics as the source of DOM, we suggest a third possible grammaticalization source within the topical domain: the prepositional marking of embedded topics. In particular, we show that the Romanian DO (Direct Object) marker pe had a function as marker of embedded topics in Old Romanian. Moreover, we show how DOM in Old Romanian may additionally have been facilitated by the re-analysis of embedded topics as themes in certain constructions.

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Differential object marking in Modern Romanian

10.1093/oso/9780192898791.003.0004 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 96-137

Author(s):

Virginia Hill ◽

Alexandru Mardale

Keyword(s):

Differential Object Marking ◽

Default Option ◽

Left Dislocation ◽

Clitic Left Dislocation ◽

Direct Objects ◽

Object Marking

Chapter 4 focuses on DOM in Modern Romanian, for both direct and indirect objects. The data are organized according to the type of DOM mechanisms, with separate sections for CD, DOM-p, and CD+DOM-p. The pragmatic effects noticed for Old Romanian DOM are re-assessed, considering that the contrasting interpretation of CD versus DOM-p is neutralized. The major changes concern the loss of CD with direct objects and its recycling in conjunction with DOM-p. While DOM-p declines and becomes more specialized for the end of the specificity scale, CD+DOM-p turns into the default option for DOM with direct objects, as opposed to CD, which becomes the default option for DOM with indirect objects. Increased productivity for CD+DOM-p coincides with the parallel expansion of Clitic Left Dislocation in the language, which completely replaces the constituent fronting through Topicalization.

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Differential object marking and object scrambling in the Guaraní language cluster

Lingvisticae Investigationes ◽

10.1075/li.00028.roe ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 31-55

Author(s):

Eva-Maria Roessler

Keyword(s):

Differential Treatment ◽

Direct Object ◽

Functional Domain ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Base Position ◽

Case Marker ◽

Parallel Data ◽

Applicative Constructions ◽

Direct Objects ◽

Object Marking

Abstract The parallel data discussed in this article suggest that in Guaraní languages differential objects seem far from being exclusively highlighted in morphology. Instead, the Guaraní dom systems exhibit a differential treatment of certain direct objects within narrow syntax. Focusing on [+animate] direct objects, I supply evidence that [+dom] direct objects scramble out of their base position into a higher, vP-internal, projection, namely αP (following López 2012). This short DO scrambling is derived including data from simple transitive, ditransitive, and applicative constructions as well as from object conjunction. The short scrambling within vP is followed by further direct object dislocation into a higher functional domain, an operation described in literature as triggered by φ-feature under T° and targeting a specifier in an expanded functional domain (Freitas 2011b). DOs that move out of their base position may be marked with the overt case marker, homophonous with dat case. The homophony between dat and dom is conceived as morphological opacity in the Guaraní case. Syntactically, however, [+dom] DOs pattern together with their zero-marked acc counterparts, rather than with indirect objects.

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Humanness in the 3rd Person Singular Personal Pronoun in Alemannic Dialects

Journal of Germanic Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1470542717000150 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 307-334

Author(s):

Raffaela Baechler

Keyword(s):

Pilot Study ◽

Direct Object ◽

Personal Pronoun ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

German Dialects ◽

Form Part ◽

Object Marking

This paper surveys the emergence of the categoryhumannessin the 3rd person singular personal pronoun in Alemannic (southwest German) dialects. The first part shows that some Alemannic dialects have developed a human/nonhuman distinction in the 3rd person singular neuter personal pronoun: a marked form encoding the human direct object has emerged. The emergence of this form can be explained by the differential object marking hypothesis. The second part reports on a pilot study of the 3rd person singular personal pronoun in Sense Alemannic on the basis of new data. In this dialect, humanness is distinguished not only in the neuter but also in the masculine and feminine. Additionally, some instances are observed that violate the differential object marking principle. Thus, both principles (humanness marking and the differential object marking) form part of the grammar, but the latter one may be violated.*

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Topicality and differential object marking

Studies in Language ◽

10.1075/sl.34.2.01iem ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 239-272 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Giorgio Iemmolo

Keyword(s):

Information Structure ◽

Comparative Data ◽

Romance Languages ◽

Semantic Features ◽

Personal Pronouns ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Left Dislocation ◽

Object Marking ◽

The Relationship

The present paper investigates the relationship between dislocation and differential object marking in some Romance languages. As in many languages that have a DOM system, it is usually also assumed that in Romance languages the phenomenon is regulated by the semantic features of the referents, such as animacy, definiteness, and specificity. In the languages under investigation, though, these features cannot explain the distribution and the emergence of DOM. After discussing the main theoretical approaches to the phenomenon, I will analyse DOM in four Romance languages. I will argue that DOM emerges in pragmatically and semantically marked contexts, namely with personal pronouns in dislocations. I will then show that in these languages the use of the DOM system is mainly motivated by the need to signal the markedness of these direct objects as a consequence of being used in (mainly left) dislocation as topics (cf. English “As for him, we didn’t see him”). Finally, the examination of comparative data from Persian and Amazonian languages lends further support to the advocated approach in terms of information structure

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Differential object marking in Ibero-Romance languages: Explanatory models in domestic and Russian educational literature

Rhema ◽

10.31862/2500-2953-2019-2-61-76 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 61-76

Author(s):

N. Pakhmutova

Keyword(s):

Explanatory Models ◽

Explanatory Model ◽

The Other ◽

Direct Object ◽

Romance Languages ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Didactic Literature ◽

Educational Literature ◽

Direct Objects ◽

Object Marking

Differential object marking / dom is the term for the phenomenon of distinguishing two classes of direct objects, one bearing a special marker, while the other lacking it. In modern linguistics, the marker licensing is partially or fully attributed to the features of a direct object: Animacy/Inanimacy and referential status. Russian didactic literature generally contains a reduced explanatory model of Spanish dom, based on the grammar of the Royal Spanish Academy. For Catalan, the explanatory model is complicated by the usus/norm split, the latter reducing the phenomenon’s scope. The paper focuses on the improvement of dom explanatory models for Spanish and Catalan.

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Differential Object Marking in Spanish: state of the art

Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics ◽

10.7557/1.2.2.2603 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Antonio Fábregas

Keyword(s):

Current Literature ◽

State Of The Art ◽

The Other ◽

Direct Object ◽

Font Size ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Internal Properties ◽

Object Marking ◽

Syntactic Properties

This state of the art tries to cover as much as possible about the properties, conditions and analyses of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish. Starting with some considerations about the boundaries of the phenomenon, it considers its morphological, semantic and syntactic properties –with respect both to the internal properties of the direct object and to the wider context in which it appears–. It also reviews the other morphosyntactic phenomena that have been claimed to correlate with DOM, and finally goes through a number of analysis in different theoretical traditions to highlight the points of agreement and debate in the current literature.

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A further argument for a syncretic analysis of DOM and dative in Spanish

Topics in Linguistics ◽

10.2478/topling-2020-0004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 62-73

Author(s):

Carlos Muñoz Pérez

Keyword(s):

Relative Clauses ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Free Relatives ◽

Dative Case ◽

Case Marker ◽

Free Relative ◽

Left Dislocation ◽

The Matrix ◽

Repairing Effect ◽

Object Marking

AbstractThis paper offers an argument to analyse the Spanish form /a/ as a syncretic case marker for accusative differential object marking (dom) and dative. The literature on free relative clauses has established that syncretism allows the repair of feature mismatches arising from contradictory selectional requirements between the matrix and the embedded predicates. By combining clitic left dislocation constructions (CLLD) and free relatives, it is shown here that dom and dative grant the same repairing effect in Spanish, so it follows that they must be syncretic categories. The same type of configuration distinguishes the directional preposition a and the dative case marker, which is taken to indicate that these elements are mere homophones in the language. Furthermore, an analysis of the repairing effect of syncretism is offered.

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REFLEXÕES SOBRE A MARCAÇÃO MORFOLÓGICA DO OBJETO DIRETO POR A EM PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO | OBSERVATIONS ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL A-MARKING OF DIRECT OBJECTS IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

Estudos Linguísticos e Literários ◽

10.9771/ell.v0i58.26807 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 83

Author(s):

Sônia Cyrino

Keyword(s):

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

The Other ◽

Direct Object ◽

Romance Languages ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Romance Language ◽

Other Hand ◽

Direct Objects ◽

Object Marking

Como é sabido, o espanhol é uma língua românica que requer que certos objetos diretos (OD) sejam morfologicamente marcados por a, a chamada Marcação Diferencial do Objeto (DOM). Em outras línguas românicas, tais como o português europeu e brasileiro, por outro lado, objetos diretos animados não são geralmente marcados. Contudo, vários estudos diacrônicos mostram que a marcação morfológica por a do objeto direto era possível nos séculos XVI a XVIII em português, e houve um declínio nesse uso a partir dessa época. Interessantemente, no português brasileiro a marcação do objeto direto por a é ainda possível (ou opcional) em alguns contextos restritos. Neste trabalho, observo o espanhol e o português brasileiro para mostrar que essas línguas são diferentes com relação à marcação por a do objeto direto, mas semelhantes com relação ao fato de que objetos diretos animados são computados externamente ao vP. O trabalho pretende contribuir para a discussão dos efeitos da animacidade do objeto direto na sintaxe.Abstract: As is well-known, Spanish is a Romance language which requires that certain direct objects (DO) be morphologically marked by the preposition “a” (to), the so-called Differential Object Marking (DOM). In other Romance languages, such as European and Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, animate direct objects are not generally marked. However, several diachronic studies show that the morphological a-marking of the direct object was possible from the 16th to 18th centuries in Portuguese, and there was a decline of that use from then on. Interestingly, in Brazilian Portuguese, DO a-marking is still possible (or optional) in some restricted contexts. In this paper, I look at Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese to show that these languages are different with respect to the occurrence of the a-marking of the DO, but similar in relation to the fact that animate direct objects are moved to a position above the vP. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the effects ofanimacy of direct objects in syntax.

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Gradient Effects of Animacy on Differential Object Marking in Turkish

Open Linguistics ◽

10.1515/opli-2019-0011 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 171-190

Author(s):

Elif Krause ◽

Klaus von Heusinger

Keyword(s):

Empirical Evidence ◽

Direct Object ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Conceptual Category ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Object Marking ◽

Gradient Effects ◽

Crucial Parameter ◽

Acceptability Judgment

AbstractAnimacy is a pervasive cognitive category that is displayed in the grammatical behavior of the world’s languages through categorical or gradient effects. We argue in this paper that animacy is a crucial parameter for Differential Object Marking (i.e., the optional marking of the direct object) in Turkish. DOM languages are typically categorized according to their dependency on definiteness and animacy. Turkish has thus far been assumed to depend only on definiteness; however, we present the first set of empirical evidence based on perceived acceptability judgment measures that show a significant effect of animacy on Turkish DOM. Moreover, we show the gradient nature of this effect. This original finding provides further evidence for the assertion that animacy is a crucial linguistic parameter in Turkish DOM and illustrates how the conceptual category of animacy is deeply entrenched in the grammar of Turkish.

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The Role of Semantic Type in Differential Object Marking

Belgian Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1075/bjl.19.03ble ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 19 ◽

pp. 3-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Tonia Bleam

Keyword(s):

Direct Object ◽

Semantic Type ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Object Marking

Spanish, like many other languages (e.g. Hindi), exhibits differential object marking (DOM). It is well-known that DOM seems to be sensitive to the animacy and/or specificity of the direct object (Bossong 1985, Aissen 2003). It is argued here that the Spanish prepositional accusative, or a-marking, is a realization of the features [+accusative] and [+animate] within a nominal projection containing a determiner (D). Nominal projections lacking D are property-denoting and are not a-marked. I show that there is a direct map between the presence or absence of a-marking and the semantic type of the (animate) direct object nominal.

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