Differential Object Marking in Old Japanese
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Bjarke Frellesvig
Abstract
Within the past few decades, various proposals have been made about marking of objects in Old Japanese (e.g., Matsunaga 1983, Motohashi 1989, Yanagida 2006, Kuroda 2008, Yanagida & Whitman 2009, Wrona & Frellesvig 2010, Kinsui 2011, Miyagawa 2012), but there is still no consensus about the exact circumstances determining when direct objects are bare or accusative case marked in Old Japanese. We use the material in the Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese to examine in detail the distribution of bare and accusative case marked objects in Old Japanese texts and show that Old Japanese had ‘differential object marking (DOM)’ associated with a specific/non-specific distinction (Yanagida & Whitman 2009). Thus, in Old Japanese, accusative case marked objects are specific, but bare objects are non-specific. This paper briefly discusses cases in which accusative case is dropped from specific objects.
Abstract
Within the past few decades, various proposals have been made about marking of objects in Old Japanese (e.g., Matsunaga 1983, Motohashi 1989, Yanagida 2006, Kuroda 2008, Yanagida & Whitman 2009, Wrona & Frellesvig 2010, Kinsui 2011, Miyagawa 2012), but there is still no consensus about the exact circumstances determining when direct objects are bare or accusative case marked in Old Japanese. We use the material in the Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese to examine in detail the distribution of bare and accusative case marked objects in Old Japanese texts and show that Old Japanese had ‘differential object marking (DOM)’ associated with a specific/non-specific distinction (Yanagida & Whitman 2009). Thus, in Old Japanese, accusative case marked objects are specific, but bare objects are non-specific. This paper briefly discusses cases in which accusative case is dropped from specific objects.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Phonology
- A Phonological motivation behind the diatonic stress shift in Modern English 3
- Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care 19
- The development of early Middle English ō 41
- The diachronic development of stød and tonal accent in North Germanic 53
- The evolution of the (alveolo)palatal lateral consonant in Spanish and Portuguese 69
-
Diachronic typology
- Evaluating prehistoric and early historic linguistic contacts 89
- Patterns in the diffusion of nomenclature systems 109
-
Morphology
- Morphological evidence for the paradigmatic status of infinitives in French and Occitan 135
- Constructional change at the interface of cognition, culture, and language use 155
-
Morphosyntax
- Stages in deflexion and the Norwegian dative 179
- Differential Object Marking in Old Japanese 195
- The grammaticalization of progressive constructions with a focus on the English progressive 213
- Hate and anger, love and desire 233
- The argument indexing of early Austronesian verbs 257
- The syntax of mood constructions in Old Japanese 281
- Medieval Sardinian 303
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Phonology
- A Phonological motivation behind the diatonic stress shift in Modern English 3
- Vowel reduction in verbs in King Alfred’s Pastoral Care 19
- The development of early Middle English ō 41
- The diachronic development of stød and tonal accent in North Germanic 53
- The evolution of the (alveolo)palatal lateral consonant in Spanish and Portuguese 69
-
Diachronic typology
- Evaluating prehistoric and early historic linguistic contacts 89
- Patterns in the diffusion of nomenclature systems 109
-
Morphology
- Morphological evidence for the paradigmatic status of infinitives in French and Occitan 135
- Constructional change at the interface of cognition, culture, and language use 155
-
Morphosyntax
- Stages in deflexion and the Norwegian dative 179
- Differential Object Marking in Old Japanese 195
- The grammaticalization of progressive constructions with a focus on the English progressive 213
- Hate and anger, love and desire 233
- The argument indexing of early Austronesian verbs 257
- The syntax of mood constructions in Old Japanese 281
- Medieval Sardinian 303
- Index 325
