Emerging DOM patterns in clitic doubling and dislocated structures in Peruvian- Spanish contact varieties

Elisabeth Mayer,Liliana Sánchez

doi:10.1515/9783110716207-005

Abstract

In this chapter we explore the expression of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in monolingual and bilingual Spanish in contact with typologically different languages. We focus on how DOM patterns are expressed in bilingual and monolingual clitic doubling and dislocated structures by investigating the effect of typological differences in case marking and the effects of definiteness, animacy and thematic role. Our findings show that while definiteness, animacy and thematic structure are relevant factors in the production of DOM across bilingual groups, there are also differences in DOM frequency related to typological distinctions in the L1 of the bilingual groups. Finally, our findings also show variability in the monolingual data of three individuals raised in a contact situation as well as the raise of topicality as a possible factor that contributes to DOM in the L2 varieties under study.

Highlights

Differential Object Marking (DOM) is a variable and widespread argument marking system (Bossong 1991; 2003; Aissen 2003; Dalrymple/Nikolaeva 2011; Witzlack-Makarevich/Seržant 2017; a.o.)
When looking at the distribution of DOM marking according to thematic role, we find that the Huánuco Quechua group has a unique pattern in which the frequency of direct objects with theme roles marked with DOM is the highest (63.4%) followed by those with patient roles with DOM (34.1%) and by unmarked direct objects with a theme role (2.4%)
In relation to the ecological factors, we propose that the scalar DOM systems (Table 4) found across the bilingual groups and the monolingual individuals can be linked to a feature pool with a reduced subset of features shaped by each group individually in accordance with their communicative needs (Mufwene 2001; 2002)

Summary

Introduction

Differential Object Marking (DOM) is a variable and widespread argument marking system (Bossong 1991; 2003; Aissen 2003; Dalrymple/Nikolaeva 2011; Witzlack-Makarevich/Seržant 2017; a.o.). It is a widely attested strategy across many genetically unrelated languages used to mark a select range of specific and/ or topical direct objects (Bossong 1991; 2003; Aissen 2003; Dalrymple/Nikolaeva 2011; a.o.). In the emergence of DOM in Romance, three different but interacting facts have been identified (Laca 2006; Mayer 2017, 101).

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion