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Points of Convergence in Romance Linguistics: Papers selected from the 48th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 48), Toronto, 25-28 April 2018
Edited by Gabriela Alboiu and Ruth King
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 360] 2022
► pp. 81–96

Chapter 4
Differential object marking, oblique morphology, and enriched case hierarchies

| University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

The puzzle of oblique morphology on differentially marked objects (dom) has received renewed attention in the recent formal literature, under two main theoretical lines: (i) oblique syntax for dom (Manzini & Franco 2016, 2019, inter alii; (ii) oblique marking on dom as morphological syncretism (Keine & Müller 2008; Keine 2010; Bárány 2018, inter alii). This paper evaluates the predictions made by these accounts against a limited set of Romance dom varieties, crucially including both dom as dative (Western Romance) and dom as a non-dative adposition (Romanian). A specific syntactic implementation for oblique dom is proposed, building on the idea of additional licensing in certain types of accusatives, combined with enriched case hierarchies (Starke 2017). This not only preserves the advantages of the above-mentioned accounts, but also opens up the path to addressing several less-studied or recalcitrant (micro)variation points.

Keywords: differential object marking, oblique morphology, syncretism, enriched case hierarchies
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Differential objects as syntactic obliques
  • 2.Oblique morphology as morphological syncretism
  • 3.Oblique dom in enriched case hierarchies
    • 3.1Nominal structure in enriched case hierarchies
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 10 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.360.04iri
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