Differential object marking

Differential object marking (DOM) is a linguistic phenomenon that is present in more than 300 languages; the term was coined by Georg Bossong.[1][2] In languages where DOM is active, direct objects are divided in two different classes, depending on different meanings, and, in most DOM languages, only one of the classes receives a marker, the other being unmarked (but there are languages, like Finnish, where both types of objects are marked with different endings).

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"):[3][4][5][6]

Inanimate direct objects do not usually allow this marker, even if they are specific:

Yet, some animate objects that are specific can optionally bear the marker:

Other languages

Other examples of languages with differential object marking are Persian, Turkish, Copala Triqui, Khasi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kham, Hebrew and Amharic. 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).[7]

This is different from what happens in non-DOM languages, where all direct objects are uniformly marked in the same way; for instance, a language could mark all direct objects with an accusative ending (as in Latin); other language could leave all direct objects without overt marker (as in English).

Research on DOM

Although the phenomenon has been known for a very long time, it was considered a minor quirk in a few languages until Georg Bossong, during the 1980s, presented evidence of DOM in more than 300 languages.[8][9] Since then, it has become an important topic of research in grammatical theory. This is a selection of works that deal with the phenomenon:

• Kwon, Song-Nim; & Anne Zribi-Hertz. 2008. Differential Function Marking, Case, and Information Structure: evidence from Korean. Language 84(2): 258-299.<http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/language/v084/84.2.kwon.html>

References

  1. ↑ Bossong, Georg. 1985. Empirische Universalienforschung. Differentielle Objektmarkierung in der neuiranischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Narr
  2. ↑ Bossong, Georg. 1991. Differential object marking in Romance and beyond. In New Analyses in Romance Linguistics, Selected Papers from the XVIII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 1988, eds. D. Wanner and D. Kibbee, 143–170. Amsterdam: Benjamins
  3. ↑ Fernández Ramírez, Salvador. 1986. Gramática española 4. El verbo y la oración. Madrid: Arco/Libros.
  4. ↑ Pensado, Carmen ed. 1995. El complemento directo preposicional. Madrid: Visor.
  5. ↑ Rodríguez-Mondoñedo, Miguel. 2007. The Syntax of Objects. Agree and Differential Object Marking, University of Connecticut: PhD Dissertation.
  6. ↑ Torrego, Esther. 1998. The dependencies of objects. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 34. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  7. ↑ 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
  8. ↑ Bossong, Georg. 1985. Empirische Universalienforschung. Differentielle Objektmarkierung in der neuiranischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Narr
  9. ↑ Bossong, Georg. 1991. Differential object marking in Romance and beyond. In New Analyses in Romance Linguistics, Selected Papers from the XVIII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 1988, eds. D. Wanner and D. Kibbee, 143–170. Amsterdam: Benjamins
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