Specificity in Clitic Doubling and in Differential Object Marking

Abstract

IntroductionSpanish and Romanian, among Romance languages, exhibit a systematic combination of two different devices for object marking, i.e. Clitic Doubling (hereinafter, CD) and Differential Object Marking (hereinafter, DOM). In this paper I will discuss mostly Spanish 2 data, with the aim of focusing on the well known specificity constraints that hold both in CD and in DOM, and offering an account of their similarities and differences. I will restrict my attention to direct object CD; moreover, I will assume that

Variable coding and object alignment in Spanish: A corpus-based approach

“…The analysis carried out in the following pagesinformed by this second approach -looks at the statistical distribution of variable marking and investigates the factors underlying this distribution. My overview of object variation in Spanish, then, aims to complement, and not contradict, other more detailed studies on the prepositional object (Laca 1987 andLaca 2006;Pensado 1995;Torrego Salcedo 1999;Delbecque 2001;Leonetti 2008, to name just a few) and on object clitics (García 1975;García and Otheguy 1977;Fernández Ordóñez 1993 andFernández Ordóñez 1999;Klein-Andreu 2000;Flores 2002;Belloro 2007, among many others). In considering the frequency distribution of the features of core grammatical relations and variable marking, I will try to follow a functional and constructional approach, identifying semantic and discourse motivations for syntactic structures.…”

“…I will deal with a-marking and person indexing (clitic doubling or object agreement) together because they display many common properties, they are triggered by similar factors, and have similar effects (Leonetti 2008). The factors governing the use of a-marking and clitic doubling involve animacy and definiteness, the lexical meaning of the verb, and discourse-pragmatic features.…”

Patterns of variation in existential constructions

“…Secondly, in these dialects DOM is achieved by means of the prepositional marker 'a', depending on specific properties of the DP such as animacy and definiteness, and reflecting given properties of verb (cf. Bossong 1991, Leonetti 2004, 2008b. With respect to the association between DOM and nominal properties, in particular the definiteness of the DP, the two groups of dialects differ significantly.…”

“…17 In Romance only a few exceptions exist to this generalization: in possessive structures, DOM is only found with pronouns and with secondary predication (cf. Laca 1987, Leonetti 2004, 2008b What is important to notice here is that both in the Salentino and in the Calabrian dialects the extent of DOM with HABERE existentials seems to be the same as with other transitive verbs: in Salento DOM is limited to first and second person pronouns (including with higher transitivity verbs such as 'know', 'see', 'meet', 'kill'), while in Calabria DOM is more widespread across verb types and involves all but non-specific DPs. 18 The final piece of evidence for the object coding of the pivot in the haveexistentials of these dialects comes from clitic dislocation: 19 17 Spanish HABERE existentials never exhibit the accusative preposition 'a' (Había (*a) una enfermera, 'There was a nurse', cf.…”

“…18 The final piece of evidence for the object coding of the pivot in the haveexistentials of these dialects comes from clitic dislocation: 19 17 Spanish HABERE existentials never exhibit the accusative preposition 'a' (Había (*a) una enfermera, 'There was a nurse', cf. Leonetti 2004Leonetti , 2008b. According to Suñer (1982), these are impersonal and subjectless constructions, so there is no need for DOM, in the sense that there is no need to distinguish between subject and object.…”