Case, Agreement, and their Interactions

New Perspectives on Differential Argument Marking

András Bárány, Laura Kalin

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783110992380
• eBook ISBN: 9783110666236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Differential argument marking has been a hot topic in linguistics for several decades, both because it is cross-linguistically widespread and because it raises essential questions at multiple levels of grammar, including the relationship between abstract processes and overt morphological marking, between case and agreement, and between syntax and information structure.

This volume provides an introduction into the current state of the art of research on differential case marking and chapters by leading linguists addressing theoretical questions in a wide range of typologically and geographically diverse languages from the Indo-European, Sinitic, Turkic, and Uralic families. The chapters engage with current theoretical issues in the morphology, syntax, semantics, and processing of differential argument marking. A central issue addressed by all the authors is the adequacy of various theoretical approaches in modelling (different varieties of) differential case marking, such as those determined by topicality, those driven by cumulative factors, and those that involve double marking.

The volume will be of interest to students and researchers working on cross-linguistic variation in differential marking and its theoretical modelling.

DOM and dative in (Italo-)Romance

M. Rita Manzini

Leonardo Savoia

Ludovico Franco

Abstract

We aim at showing that the superficial identity of DOM internal arguments and of goal dative involves no accidental homophony or syncretism, but rather an underlying identical structure of embedding. Specifically, we conclude that DOM arguments are syntactically oblique (Section 2). We introduce the matter by detailing referential/animacy splits in Italo-Romance microvariation (Section 1.1). We show that in Italian varieties goal arguments can be introduced by prepositions different from a; the same oblique morphology is then associated with animate/definite (DOM) objects (Section 1.2). In Section 5, the existence of both leísta varieties (Ibero-Romance) and loísta varieties (in Italo- and Ibero-Romance) in clitic doubling provide further evidence in favour of a common treatment for goal and DOM datives.

Keywords: differential object marking, dative, locative, clitic doubling, Italo-Romance,

1 DOM in Italian varieties

This section details microvariation in differential object marking (DOM) in Central and Southern Italian varieties, in Sardinian, in the dialects of Romagna and Montefeltro, in Corsican and in Romansh.¹ In Section 1.1 we order our data according to the categories of animacy and definiteness/specificity that are generally held to be descriptively relevant for the distribution of DOM. In Section 1.2 we address the nature of the preposition that lexicalizes DOM in the relevant languages and its relation to the preposition lexicalizing dative. This latter issue is directly relevant for the analysis of DOM as obliquization in Section 2 and for the subsequent discussion of the issues this proposal raises (Sections 2 to 5).

1.1 Animacy and definiteness splits

As is well-known from both the historical-typological and the formal literature, the set of DPs undergoing DOM crosslinguistically may be characterized in terms of a hierarchy on whose descriptive content there is considerable agreement, though i...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Cumulative effects in differential argument encoding and long-distance extraction Local conjunction vs. Harmonic Grammar
• Types of structural objects Some remarks on differential object marking in Romanian
• DOM and DSM in Turkish Not only dependent case, but also dependent Agree
• Abstract and morphological case in a nominative–accusative system with differential case marking The case of Asia Minor Greek
• DOM and dative in (Italo-)Romance
• Topicality and differential object marking in Mandarin Chinese: Identity and variety in an array of structures
• Estonian speakers’ representation of morphological case Implications for Case/Agree
• Index