Differential Object Marking and Labeling in Spanish (original) (raw)
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Differential object marking in inanimate objects in Spanish
Rafael Camacho Ramirez, 2023
The aim of this paper is to explain the differential object marking (DOM) of inanimate objects in Spanish. Generally, animate objects in Spanish are marked with an A morpheme; however, it is possible for the A-marker to appear also with inanimate objects in specific circumstances. In this article, I defend the idea that the marking of inanimate objects in Spanish responds to the interaction of the feature of existence presupposition of the verb with the feature that dominates the object's specificity. The analysis will be done using mainly two theoretical tools: the feature geometry of Harley & Ritter (2002) and Chomsky's (2013, 2015) labeling theory.
Differential Object Marking in Spanish: state of the art
Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2013
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.
This is a corpus-illustrated investigation in which I explore DOM in two different varieties of Spanish, i.e. Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. This paper not only focuses on the differences in DOM between these two varieties, but also assesses possible semantic implications of the presence/absence of DOM with all types of Direct Objects (both animate and inanimate) in similar environments. Finally I should mention that this is a slightly revised version of a final paper written for an Advanced Master's course.
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Spanish
Morphology, 2011
In this study we investigate the impact of affectedness on the diachronic development of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish. DOM in Spanish synchronically depends on (i) the referential features of the direct object, such as animacy and referentiality, and (ii) the semantics of the verb. Several studies have also shown that the diachronic development of DOM proceeds along the Animacy Scale and the Referentiality Scale, and some recent corpus studies have indicated an influence of the verb semantics on this diachronic process. This study presents new findings from a detailed analysis of extensive corpus research on the distribution of DOM with respect to affectedness, understood as "the persistent change of an event participant". We use Tsunoda's Affectedness Scale to order the verb classes under investigation. Our findings provide evidence that this scale can be partly correlated with the diachronic spread of DOM in Spanish which would tend to confirm the influence of verbal semantics on Differential Object Marking in Spanish.
Two Kinds of Differential Object Marking in Portuguese and Spanish
Portuguese is typically not considered a differential object marking (DOM) language, while Spanish, with its accusative a, is one of the most well-known DOM languages. This chapter uses quantitative multivariate analysis to argue that Portuguese -both Brazilian (BP) and European (EP) -displays a clear-cut DOM system. Unlike Spanish, however, the Portuguese DOM system is limited to strictly anaphoric direct object referents. Both BP and EP oppose null objects with overt pronominal marking of anaphoric DOs, even though the pronouns employed differ in each variety. In both Spanish and Portuguese, animacy, definiteness and specificity constrain the encoding of direct object referents in similar ways; most notably, the hierarchical ordering of these constraints is the same across the two languages.
Brazilian Portuguese null objects and Spanish differential object marking
2021
Animacy features have been known to trigger syntactic phenomena. In this paper,<br> I focus on differential object marking (DOM), and the null object in Brazilian<br> Portuguese, where such features are relevant. I assume that animacy corresponds to<br> a specification of Person features, and lack of animacy implies that no Person<br> features are encoded in a DP. Furthermore, I propose that animacy is encoded in a<br> dedicated functional head. Animate DPs (i.e. DOM in Spanish and animate objects<br> in BP) move to Spec, FPanimacy , a projection above V, below v, to check a person<br> feature. Crucially, inanimate DPs stay in situ. They are not DOM marked in Spanish<br> and, by virtue of being low, they can be licensed as DP ellipsis in BP. This<br> analysis may contribute to work seeking to grasp the role of referential hierarchies in<br> syntax.
Specificity and differential object marking in Spanish
Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 2004
* I am grateful to the participants at the workshop "Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Specificity in Romance Languages" (Konstanz, October 2002) and to two anonymous reviewers of Catalan Journal of Linguistics for very useful and thought-provoking comments, as well as to Vicky Escandell-Vidal and Olga Fernández-Soriano for helpful discussion on an earlier draft. Thanks also to Begoña Vicente for patiently correcting my English. All remaining errors are exclusively mine. A previous version of this paper appeared as "Specificity and Object Marking: the Case of Spanish a" in K. Von Heusinger and G. Kaiser (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop "Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Specificity in Romance Languages", Arbeitspapier 113. Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz, 67-101. This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología through a DGICYT project (PB98/0707 "Gramática e interpretación en la teoría de la relevancia"). 1 See Bossong (1997) and Aissen (2003) for an overview.
A minimal cartography of Dierential Object Marking in Spanish
2014
In this paper we use a minimal cartography to show that DOM constructions in Spanish have special properties that make them syntactically and semantically dierent from non-DOM constructions. First, a-marked DOs have a dierent underlying structure. In their structure there is a relational projection (RelP) which is modied by Disjoint, giving the interpretation that the DP complement is a recipient of the action of the verb. Second, a-marked objects occupy a dierent position in the structure from non a-marked objects: while the former occupy the complement of proc(ess), the latter occupy a modier position. By establishing these two dierences, we provide a unied explanation for the special properties of DOM constructions that have been pointed out in previous works, like the presence of a or aectedness, specicity and animacy of the DO.