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Differential objects and datives – a homogeneous class?
Edited by Monica Alexandrina Irimia and Anna Pineda
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 42:1] 2019
► pp. 31–55

Differential object marking and object scrambling in the Guaraní language cluster

| University of Minho (Braga, Portugal)

The parallel data discussed in this article suggest that in Guaraní languages differential objects seem far from being exclusively highlighted in morphology. Instead, the Guaraní dom systems exhibit a differential treatment of certain direct objects within narrow syntax. Focusing on [+animate] direct objects, I supply evidence that [+dom] direct objects scramble out of their base position into a higher, vP-internal, projection, namely αP (following López 2012). This short DO scrambling is derived including data from simple transitive, ditransitive, and applicative constructions as well as from object conjunction. The short scrambling within vP is followed by further direct object dislocation into a higher functional domain, an operation described in literature as triggered by φ-feature under T° and targeting a specifier in an expanded functional domain (Freitas 2011b). DOs that move out of their base position may be marked with the overt case marker, homophonous with dat case. The homophony between dat and dom is conceived as morphological opacity in the Guaraní case. Syntactically, however, [+dom] DOs pattern together with their zero-marked acc counterparts, rather than with indirect objects.

Keywords: differential object marking, object scrambling, person hierarchy, direct/inverse alignment, Guaraní language cluster
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Pronouns, verbal agreement and word order
    • 2.1Free pronominal forms
    • 2.2Bound agreement marking
    • 2.3Direct/inverse marking system
    • 2.4Agreement, p-hierarchy and word-order
  • 3.DP features and dom
    • 3.1The basic dom system
    • 3.2Pronominal differential objects
    • 3.3[dom] and DP-feature based theory
  • 4.Syntactic treatment of direct objects
    • 4.1Previous work on Guaraní word order
    • 4.2Evidence for short scrambling of DO+dom
    • 4.3[dom] and syntactic theory
    • 4.4Further evidence for “3-Step” object scrambling
  • 5.Accusative-dative homophony in Guaraní
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 10 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00028.roe
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