Differential object marking
In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is present in more than 300 languages. The term "differential object marking" was coined by Georg Bossong.[1][2]
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Overview
In languages where DOM is active, direct objects are partitioned into two classes; in most such DOM languages, only the members of one of the classes receive a marker (the others being unmarked), but in some languages, like Finnish, objects of both classes are marked (with different endings). In non-DOM languages, by contrast, direct objects are uniformly marked in a single way. For instance, Quechua marks all direct objects with the direct-object ending -ta, whereas English has no overt markers on any direct objects.
A common basis for differentially marking direct objects is the notion of "prominence," which reflects two properties that can be understood along decreasing scales:[3]
- Animacy: human > animate > inanimate
- Definiteness (or specificity): personal pronoun > proper name > definite NP > indefinite specific NP > non-specific NP
These same scales are also reflected in Silverstein’s person/animacy hierarchy.[4] Besides animacy and definiteness, another property that triggers differential object marking in some languages is the way the action of a verb affects the direct object.[5] Some languages mark for only one of these properties (e.g., animacy), while others' markings reflect combinations of them. Typically, direct objects that are more prominent are more likely to be overtly case-marked.[3]
Examples
Spanish
A well-known DOM language is Spanish. In Spanish, direct objects that are both human and specific require a special marker (the preposition a "to"):[6][7][8][9]
- Pedro besó a Lucía. = Peter kissed Lucy. (Literally, "Peter kissed to Lucy")
Inanimate direct objects do not usually allow this marker, even if they are specific:
- Pedro besó el retrato. = Peter kissed the picture.
Yet, some animate objects that are specific can optionally bear the marker:
- Pedro vio (a) la gata. = Peter saw (to) the cat-FEM
Some dialectal variation has been attested regarding the use of DOM in different varieties of Spanish. Balasch finds that, while the linguistic factors conditioning the use of DOM remain the same in both Mérida (Venezuela) Spanish and Madrid Spanish, DOM appears much more often in Madrid data.[10] Furthermore, Tippets and Schwenter find that a factor known as relative animacy (the animacy of the direct object relative to that of the subject) is quite important in the implementation of DOM in varieties of Spanish such as Buenos Aires and Madrid Spanish. [11]
Sakha
In languages like Turkish, Kazakh and Sakha, more "prominent" objects take an overt accusative marker while nonspecific ones do not. Lack of an overt case marker can restrict an object's distribution in the sentence.[12] Those orders are permitted in Sakha if accusative case is overtly expressed:
‘She/he is eating the/a (particular) apple.’
яблоко-ну
yabloko-nu
кини
kini
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
кини
kini
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
яблоко-ну
yabloko-nu
бүгүн
bügün
today
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
eat
‘She/he is eating the/a (particular) apple today.’
However, when the object is nonspecific, only the first (a) of the following sentences is grammatical, while alternative ordering as in the other three sentences (b-d) is not permitted (an asterisk * marks ungrammatical sentences):
*яблоко
yabloko
кини
kini
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
*кини
kini
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
яблоко
yabloko
яблоко
yabloko
apple
бүгүн
bügün
today
сии-р-∅
sii-r-∅
eat
‘She/he is eating some apple or other today.’
When the direct object is low on the definiteness scale, it must directly precede the verb, whereas alternative ordering is possible when the direct object is higher in prominence.
Other languages
Other examples of languages with differential object marking are Persian, Turkish, Copala Triqui, Khasi, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Kham, Hebrew and Amharic. A number of languages in Mozambique also show differential object marking.[13] In Turkish, the direct object can either have accusative case or have no (visible) case at all; when it has accusative case, it is interpreted as specific (e.g. one specific person), and otherwise it is interpreted as nonspecific (e.g. some person).[14] Most modern Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi and Marathi also exhibit something similar, where direct objects must be explicitly marked as accusative in the case of definite or often animate participants.[15]: 3 [16]: 327–334 Due to the accusative and dative markers being identical for many Indo-Aryan languages, some analyses assert that the accusative case is always unmarked (like the nominative), and instead the dative markers are identical to those for differential object marking.[17]: 5–12
Other DOM languages include some Aromanian dialects, precisely those of Krania, in Thessaly, Greece; and in the western dialects of Ohrid, in North Macedonia. Romanian also has DOM through the marker pe, these two and Spanish being the only Romance languages with this linguistic feature.[18]
In addition to spoken languages, DOM is also found in some sign languages. In German Sign Language, for example, animate direct objects receive an additional marker while inanimate direct objects do not.[5]
References
- Bossong 1985.
- Bossong 1991.
- Aissen 2003
- Silverstein, Michael. (1976) "Hierarchy of Features and Ergativity". In R. M. W. Dixon (ed.) Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages.
- Bross, Fabian (2020). "Object marking in German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache): Differential object marking and object shift in the visual modality". Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. 5 (1): 63. doi:10.5334/gjgl.992. S2CID 220333386.
- Fernández Ramírez, Salvador. 1986. Gramática española 4. El verbo y la oración. Madrid: Arco/Libros.
- Pensado 1995.
- Rodríguez-Mondoñedo 2007.
- Torrego 1998.
- Balasch, Sonia (December 22, 2016). "Factors Determining Spanish Differential Object Marking within Its Domain of Variation" (PDF). Factors Determining Spanish Differential Object Marking within Its Domain of Variation. University of New Mexico. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
- Schwenter, Tippets, Scott, Ian (December 22, 2016). "Relative Animacy and Differential Object Marking in Spanish" (PDF). ling.upenn.edu. The Ohio State University.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - van de Visser, Mario. (2006) "The Marked Status of Ergativity". PhD. Dissertation.
- Ngunga, Armindo Saúl Atelela, Fábio Bonfim Duarte, and Quesler Fagundes Camargos. 2016. Differential object marking in Mozambican languages. Diversity in African languages pp. 333ff. Doris L. Payne, Sara Pacchiarotti, Mokaya Bosire, eds. Language Science Press.
- See Jaklin Kornfilt and Klaus von Heusinger (2005). The case of the direct object in Turkish. Semantics, syntax and morphology. In Turkic Languages 9, 3–44
- Beck, Christin; Butt, Miriam; Deo, Ashwini (2021). "Tracking Case Innovation: A Perspective from Marathi" (PDF). Retrieved 2022-12-10.
- de Hoop, Helen; Narasimhan, Bhuvana (2005-01-01). "Differential Case-Marking in Hindi". In Amberber, Mengistu; De Hoop, Helen (eds.). Chapter 12 - Differential Case-Marking in Hindi. pp. 321–345. doi:10.1016/b978-008044651-6/50015-x. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-1748-5. ISBN 9780080446516. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - Bobaljik, Jonathan David (March 2017). "In defense of a universal: A brief note on case, agreement, and differential object marking" (PDF). Retrieved 2022-12-10.
- Bužarovska, Eleni (2020). "The contact hypothesis revised: DOM in the South Slavic periphery". Journal of Language Contact. 13 (1): 57–95. doi:10.1163/19552629-bja10003. S2CID 225734803.
Bibliography
Although the phenomenon has been known for a very long time, it was considered a minor quirk in a few languages until the 1980s, when Bossong presented evidence of DOM in more than 300 languages. Since then, it has become an important topic of research in grammatical theory. This is a selection of works that deal with the phenomenon:
- Aissen, Judith (2003). "Differential Object Marking: Iconicity vs. Economy". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 21 (3): 435–483. doi:10.1023/A:1024109008573. ISSN 0167-806X. JSTOR 4048040. S2CID 170258629.
- Bittner, Maria (1994). Case, scope, and binding. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9780792326496.
- Bossong, Georg (1983–1984). "Animacy and Markedness in Universal Grammar" (PDF). Glossologia: 7–20.
- Bossong, Georg (16 April 1985). "Empirische Universalienforschung: Differentielle Objektmarkierung in den neuiranischen Sprachen". Ars Linguistica (in German). doi:10.5281/zenodo.4697660.
- Bossong, Georg (1991). "Differential Object Marking in Romance and Beyond". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 69: 143. doi:10.1075/cilt.69.14bos. ISBN 978-90-272-3566-4.
- Bossong, Georg (1997). "Le Marquage Différentiel de L'Objet dans les Langues d'Europe". In Feuillet, Jack (ed.). Actance et Valence dans les Langues d'Europe (in French). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 193–258. ISBN 9783110157499.
- Brugè, Laura; Brugger, Gerhard (1996). "On the accusative a in Spanish". Probus. 8 (1): 1–52. doi:10.1515/prbs.1996.8.1.1. S2CID 170516795.
- Dalrymple, Mary; Nikolaeva, Irina (2011). Objects and Information Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521199858.
- Heusinger, Klaus von; Kaiser, Georg A. (2003). "Animacy, Specificity, and Definiteness in Spanish". Proceedings of the Workshop Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Specificity in Romance Languages. Konstanz: Universität Konstanz: 41–65.
- Heusinger, Klaus von; Kaiser, Georg A. (2005). Heusinger, Klaus von; Kaiser, Georg A.; Stark, Elisabeth (eds.). "The evolution of differential object marking in Spanish". Proceedings of the Workshop "Specificity and the Evolution / Emergence of Nominal Determination Systems in Romance". Konstanz: Universität Konstanz: 33–70.
- Iemmolo, Giorgio (20 August 2010). "Topicality and differential object marking: Evidence from Romance and beyond" (PDF). Studies in Language. 34 (2): 239–272. doi:10.1075/sl.34.2.01iem. S2CID 51471322.
- Kwon, Song-Nim; Zribi-Hertz, Anne (2008). "Differential Function Marking, Case, and Information Structure: Evidence from Korean". Language. 84 (2): 258–299. doi:10.1353/lan.0.0005. S2CID 121422063.
- Leonetti, Manuel (2004). "Specificity and Differential Object Marking in Spanish" (PDF). Catalan Journal of Linguistics. 3: 75–114. doi:10.5565/rev/catjl.106. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-09.
- Öztürk, Balkız. (2005). Case, referentiality, and phrase structure. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co. ISBN 9781588116451.
- Pensado, Carmen, ed. (1995). El complemento directo preposicional. Gramática del Español (in Spanish). Madrid: Visor Libros. ISBN 978-84-7522-456-5.
- Rodríguez-Mondoñedo, Miguel (2007). The Syntax of Objects. Agree and Differential Object Marking (PDF) (PhD). University of Connecticut. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-05-24.
- Swart, P.J.F. de (2007). Cross-linguistic Variation in Object Marking (PhD). University of Nijmegen. ISBN 978-90-78328-39-1.
- Torrego, Esther (1998). The dependencies of objects. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs. Vol. 34. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262201124.
- Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Seržant, Ilja A. (April 24, 2018). "Differential argument marking: Patterns of variation". In Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Seržant, Ilja A. (eds.). Diachrony of differential argument marking. Berlin: Language Science Press. pp. 1–40. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1228243. ISBN 978-3-96110-085-9.