Abstract
Case marking of the object is often claimed to be driven specifically by two referential properties of the object, animacy and definiteness. Data from 744 languages, however, provide typological evidence that there is no universal preference for object case marking to be driven by these properties, but at the same time provide strong evidence that object case marking tends to be restricted in some way rather than be generalized across all objects. I argue that the independence of object case marking from these two semantic-pragmatic properties may be explained by the instability of their relationship, and that economy provides a feasible explanation for restricting case marking to only some objects.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- A typological perspective on Differential Object Marking
- Differential Object Marking and identifiability of the referent: A study of Mandarin Chinese
- Differential object marking in Neo-Aramaic
- Differential Object Marking in Corsican: Regularities and triggering factors
- Pragmatic direct object Marking in Eastern Mansi
- Identifiability, givenness and zero-marked referential objects in Komi
- Prepositional inanimates in Dutch: A paradigmatic case of Differential Object Marking
- Cross-categorial scalar properties explaining Differential Object Marking
- Differential Object Marking in Ancient Greek
- Differential argument realization in Abui
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- A typological perspective on Differential Object Marking
- Differential Object Marking and identifiability of the referent: A study of Mandarin Chinese
- Differential object marking in Neo-Aramaic
- Differential Object Marking in Corsican: Regularities and triggering factors
- Pragmatic direct object Marking in Eastern Mansi
- Identifiability, givenness and zero-marked referential objects in Komi
- Prepositional inanimates in Dutch: A paradigmatic case of Differential Object Marking
- Cross-categorial scalar properties explaining Differential Object Marking
- Differential Object Marking in Ancient Greek
- Differential argument realization in Abui