Differential object marking

In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is present in more than 300 languages. The term "differential object marking" was coined by Georg Bossong. In languages where DOM is active, direct objects are partitioned into two classes; in most such DOM languages, only the members of one of the classes receive a marker (the others being unmarked), but in some languages, like Finnish, objects of both classes are marked (with different endings). In non-DOM languages, by contrast, direct objects are uniformly marked in a single way. For instance, Quechua marks all direct objects with the direct-object ending -ta, whereas English has no overt markers on any direct objects. A common basis for differentially marking direct objects is the notion of "prominence," which reflects two properties that can be understood along decreasing scales: Animacy: human > animate > inanimate Definiteness (or specificity): personal pronoun > proper name > definite NP > indefinite specific NP > non-specific NP These same scales are also reflected in Silverstein’s person/animacy hierarchy. Besides animacy and definiteness, another property that triggers differential object marking in some languages is the way the action of a verb affects the direct object. Some languages mark for only one of these properties (e.g., animacy), while others' markings reflect combinations of them. Typically, direct objects that are more prominent are more likely to be overtly case-marked. A well-known DOM language is Spanish. In Spanish, direct objects that are both human and specific require a special marker (the preposition a "to"): Pedro besó a Lucía. = Peter kissed Lucy. (Literally, "Peter kissed to Lucy") Inanimate direct objects do not usually allow this marker, even if they are specific: Pedro besó el retrato. = Peter kissed the picture.