Differential object marking in a dialect of Sicily
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Cristina Guardiano
Abstract
This contribution proposes an overview of the distribution of a-marked objects in a Romance dialect of Sicily, focusing on the relation between a-marking and the syntactic properties of the nominal structure in object position. The following properties are considered: type of lexical head (pronouns vs. nouns); coding of the Person feature on the lexical head and its relation with the functional head D; type of noun (proper names, kinship nouns, other nouns); lexical realization of the determiner (D head); definiteness and animacy of the object; Number. It will be shown that, in the dialect explored, a-marking is constrained by two major restrictions: (1) a-marking is only possible if the head D is phonetically realized, and (2) [+human] referents must be a-marked.
Abstract
This contribution proposes an overview of the distribution of a-marked objects in a Romance dialect of Sicily, focusing on the relation between a-marking and the syntactic properties of the nominal structure in object position. The following properties are considered: type of lexical head (pronouns vs. nouns); coding of the Person feature on the lexical head and its relation with the functional head D; type of noun (proper names, kinship nouns, other nouns); lexical realization of the determiner (D head); definiteness and animacy of the object; Number. It will be shown that, in the dialect explored, a-marking is constrained by two major restrictions: (1) a-marking is only possible if the head D is phonetically realized, and (2) [+human] referents must be a-marked.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Introduction 1
- Differential object marking in Barese 24
- Differential object marking in French 56
- Clitic doubling in Brazilian Portuguese as a DOM strategy 85
- Syntactic and semantic constraints on differential object marking in Old Sardinian 105
- Differential object marking in Brazilian Portuguese 135
- Corsican DOM 160
- Differential object marking in a dialect of Sicily 192
- The dative/accusative alternations in Old Romanian 232
- Differential object marking in kinship terms and animacy hierarchies in Old Sardinian 253
- Parametric variation in differential object marking in Italo-Romance 267
- A micro-comparative approach to DOM in language-contact environments 315
- Index 349
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Introduction 1
- Differential object marking in Barese 24
- Differential object marking in French 56
- Clitic doubling in Brazilian Portuguese as a DOM strategy 85
- Syntactic and semantic constraints on differential object marking in Old Sardinian 105
- Differential object marking in Brazilian Portuguese 135
- Corsican DOM 160
- Differential object marking in a dialect of Sicily 192
- The dative/accusative alternations in Old Romanian 232
- Differential object marking in kinship terms and animacy hierarchies in Old Sardinian 253
- Parametric variation in differential object marking in Italo-Romance 267
- A micro-comparative approach to DOM in language-contact environments 315
- Index 349
