Work

Differential object marking and Scales: insights from diachrony

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: This paper addresses a generally ignored counterexample to the Scales, comparing Old Catalan and Old Romanian on the one hand to Old Spanish on the other hand. Contrary to widely assumed marking hierarchies, Old Catalan/Old Romanian 3rd person pronouns show differential object marking, to the exclusion of or to a higher degree than 1st/2nd persons. We propose these patterns can be straightforwardly derived once we pin down micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and the consequences various types of perspectival/sentience features have on the syntactic licensing of arguments.

Source: Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America

DOI: 10.3765/plsa.v4i1.4561

Authors: Monica Alexandrina Irimia, Anna Pineda

Institutions: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Language: English

Topic: Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, FP7 Ideas: European Research Council

Awards: G165585157, Meeting Darwin's last challenge: toward a global tree of human languages and genes