Differential Object Marking and identifiability of the referent: A study of Mandarin Chinese

Iemmolo, Giorgio; Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco

doi:10.1515/ling-2013-0064

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In line with this prediction, there are many documented cases of DOM triggered by information structure, in which unexpected given/topical objects receive special case marking (e.g., Tigre, Persian, Balearic Catalan, and Altai; Dalrymple & Nikolaeva, 2011 ; Escandell‐Vidal, 2009 ; Iemmolo, 2010 , 2011 , 2013 ). For example, in Tigre (a Semitic language), objects that are introduced into the discourse for the first time (i.e., are informationally new) are unmarked (2a), whereas discourse‐old objects are marked (2b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 67%

The Impact of Information Structure on the Emergence of Differential Object Marking: An Experimental Study

et al. 2022

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Many languages exhibit differential object marking (DOM), where only certain types of grammatical objects are marked with morphological cases. Traditionally, it has been claimed that DOM arises as a way to prevent ambiguity by marking objects that might otherwise be mistaken for subjects (e.g., animate objects). While some recent experimental work supports this account, research on language typology suggests at least one alternative hypothesis. In particular, DOM may instead arise as a way of marking objects that are atypical from the point of view of information structure. According to this account, rather than being marked to avoid ambiguity, objects are marked when they are given (already familiar in the discourse) rather than new. Here, we experimentally investigate this hypothesis using two artificial language learning experiments. We find that information structure impacts participants’ object marking, but in an indirect way: atypical information structure leads to a change in word order, which then triggers increased object marking. Interestingly, this staged process of change is compatible with documented cases of DOM emergence. We argue that this process is driven by two cognitive tendencies. First, a tendency to place discourse given information before new information, and second, a tendency to mark noncanonical word order. Taken together, our findings provide corroborating evidence for the role of information structure in the emergence of DOM systems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 67%

The Impact of Information Structure on the Emergence of Differential Object Marking: An Experimental Study

et al. 2022

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“…The importance of information structure in conditioning the use of -ha suggests that this marker has most probably originated as a topic marker, as suggested by Dede (2007) and Xu (2015) in earlier studies on case marking in the Sinitic languages of the Amdo Sprachbund. Topic is a part that is already identified in the discourse and this forms a natural link to DOM based on definiteness and Patient affectedness (see Li & Thompson 1981: 465;Iemmolo;Iemmolo 2011;Iemmolo & Arcodia 2014). As illustrated in Section 4, both of these factors play an important role in conditioning Differential Argument Marking in Wutun.…”

Section: Information Structurementioning

confidence: 98%

Differential argument marking and the multifunctional case marker -ha in Wutun: Between the argument structure and information structure

Sandman¹

2022

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This paper discusses the various functions of the multifunctional case marker -ha in Wutun, a mixed Sinitic language with Northwest Mandarin lexicon and Amdo Tibetan syntax spoken in Tongren County, eastern part of Qinghai Province, Amdo Sprachbund. I will show that the use of -ha is connected to Differential Argument Marking and it is motivated partly by semantic factors and partly by information structure. The case marker -ha often occurs on the Recipient, Patient or Causee argument in clauses with two animate arguments and it can therefore be used to disambiguate arguments. Its use is also connected to affectedness, which can be operationalized in terms of definiteness and saliency. Patient arguments are more likely to be marked with -ha if they are totally affected (e.g. The dog ate the dumplings) than only partially affected (e.g. The dog ate some dumplings). However, the use of -ha cannot be explained solely on the basis of semantic factors and it is often connected to information structure, such as expressing contrastiveness, activating previously mentioned topic or differentiating between topical and focal parts of the sentence. In summary, -ha is used with highly affected non-Agent arguments that often play a special role in information structure.

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“…(Feng 2002a:248) e. 把他們 *(包)*(圍) ba tamen baowei BA them surround 'surround them.' (Feng 2002a:249) Moreover, although it has been argued that the preposed object must be referential and known which seems to suggest A'-movement of the object to an internal Topic/Focus projection (Tsao 1987, Bender 2000, Arcodia & Iemmolo 2014, indefinite objects headed by indefinite articles (yi)ge 'a/one' (14a-b) as well as non-specific generic objects (14c) are attested in ba-constructions which are not referential but delimited by the telic nature of the lexical verb phrase (Wang 1985, Liu 1997, Ritter & Rosen 2000. Furthermore, ba-constructions may optionally contain an unaccusative marker gei (給) right above the lower VP (14d) (Tang 2001), which supports the hypothesis that the preposed object is merged in the specifier of a functional head denoting affectedness (Kuo 2010):…”

Section: Chinese Ba (V(erb) > Voice)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential object marking: Nominal and verbal parameters

Tse

2020

Proc Ling Soc Amer

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Rich comparative-typological work has established differential object marking (DOM) as a linguistic universal based on various dimensions of nominal and verbal markedness where more marked categories are more likely to be morphologically marked than unmarked ones (Aissen 2003). However, despite the seemingly uniform and homogeneous properties in the world’s examples, the great variety and diversity of lexical sources raise the possibility of there being microvariations between different types of DOM. Romance preposition ad and Chinese co-verb ba are two mainstream examples of DOM and a comparison shows that different lexical sources can give rise to nominally-driven and verbally-driven mechanisms of DOM, since while Romance ad is reanalysed as a nominal Case-marker and is extended to all relevant types of object nouns (animate/referential), Chinese ba is embedded in the verbal domain where it selects transitive/affective types of verb phrases. This comparison opens up new perspectives on the mechanisms of DOM, namely the clustering of nominal and verbal markedness which can be shown to correlate with the lexical sources of the DOM-markers.

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Differential Object Marking and identifiability of the referent: A study of Mandarin Chinese

Cited by 12 publications

References 6 publications

The Impact of Information Structure on the Emergence of Differential Object Marking: An Experimental Study

The Impact of Information Structure on the Emergence of Differential Object Marking: An Experimental Study

Differential argument marking and the multifunctional case marker -ha in Wutun: Between the argument structure and information structure

Differential object marking: Nominal and verbal parameters

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