| Title: | The Discourse Structuring Potential of DOM, the Case of Indefinite and Definite Direct Objects in Romanian |
| Authors: | Klaus Von Heusinger, Sofiana Chiriacescu |
| Publication: | Revue roumaine de linguistique, LVIII (4), p. 439-456 |
| p-ISSN: | 0035-3957 |
| Publisher: | Editura Academiei |
| Place: | București |
| Year: | 2013 |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates pe-marking of postverbal human direct objects in Romanian as an instance of differential object marking (DOM). Specifically, we compare the conditions under which unmodified definite noun phrases are pe-marked with the conditions under which indefinite noun phrases are pe-marked. We argue that pe-marking does not only signal the referential property of specificity for indefinites and referentiality for definites, but that it also signals the discourse-pragmatic property of Discourse Structuring Potential (DSP). DSP is reflected by (i) a higher likelihood of subsequent mention (Givón 1983, Ariel 2001, Arnold 2010) and (ii) a higher topic shift potential (Givón 1983). Discussing the findings from different sentence-continuation experiments we conducted, we argue that pe-marked unmodified definite noun phrases and pe-marked indefinite noun phrases show a higher DSP than their unmarked counterparts. |
| Key words: | Differential object marking, specificity, Discourse Structuring Potential, discourse prominence, sentence-continuation task |
| Language: | English |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
Citations to this publication: 1
| 2 | Alexandra Cornilescu, Anca Dinu | Adjectives and Specificity | RRL, LIX (1), 103-128 | 2014 | pdf html |
References in this publication: 2
| 9 | Gabriela Pană Dindelegan | Din nou despre statutul prepoziției. Cu referire specială la prepoziția PE | LR, XLVI (1-3), 165 | 1997 | |
| 61 | Alexandru Niculescu | Individualitatea limbii române între limbile romanice 1. Contribuții gramaticale | Editura Științifică | 1965 |
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