Description
Some Romance varieties display Differential Object Marking (henceforth, ‘DOM’. Bossong, 1985), a phenomenon whereby certain classes of Direct Objects (`DOs’, henceforth) are introduced by a preposition, in virtue of their semantic and pragmatic features.DOM varies among languages as it can be triggered by different factors, and it may affect different types of DOs.
In this talk, I focus on Friulian, a Rhaeto Romance language which does not display DOM in its homeland variety spoken in Italy. Interestingly, the phenomenon emerges in the heritage counterpart spoken in Argentina.
Intuitively, this change might be attributed to transfer from the majority language, Argentinean Spanish, which displays an extensive DOM system (Di Tullio 2013).
Here, it will be argued that the emergence of DOM in heritage Friulian is independent of language contact, although this plays an important role in accelerating the change. Two main arguments will support this claim: first, DOM in heritage Friulian is regulated by pragmatic and semantic factors that do not intervene in the production of DOM in Argentinean Spanish. In addition to this, factors involved in Argentinean Spanish DOM do not seem to be relevant in heritage Friulian DOM.
| Period | 25 Jun 2021 |
|---|---|
| Event title | RomTiN |
| Event type | Conference |