This dissertation investigates the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Northern Galilee Arabic (NGA). DOM is a widespread linguistic phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs appear in a different form from the expected one depending on various factors. While DOM has been well studied cross-linguistically, it has been less investigated in Arabic and in particular NGA. The thesis provides a detailed investigation of DOM in NGA which is complemented by novel arguments about the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of DOM. I demonstrate that DOM in NGA has the following properties: (i) the object needs to be an individuated definite DP, (ii) the DP is marked by a prepositional dative, (iii) the dative marked DP is accompanied by clitic doubling i.e., the clitic and the marked DP co-refer, and (iv) the marked DP is interpreted as an aboutness topic. I argue that DOM is derived by rightward A-movement to the edge of vP, specifically to Spec-ApplP. I provide three pieces of evidence for this argument: (i) island tests, (ii) binding, and (iii) adverbial placement tests. The empirical motivation for movement to ApplP is primarily for case checking. The movement is accompanied by clitic doubling, where the DP object and the corresponding clitic start the derivation by forming a big-DP. The DP object is differentially marked by movement to Spec-ApplP where the Appl head assigns dative case to it. Another novel motivation for the DOM movement to ApplP comes from aboutness topicality. I argue that the property that distinguishes DOM structures in NGA from their non-DOM counterparts is aboutness topicality (Reinhart 1981). I argue that the obligatory movement of the differentially marked object to the phase edge of vP allows its anchoring to a referential address, making it an aboutness topic. I further observe that only nominals that can be mapped onto a referential address (Endriss 2009) can be differentially marked. Consequently, quantifier phrases can also be DOM but only if they can be mapped onto a minimal witness set. This dissertation also explores which types of nominals can participate in DOM. Based on Zarka and Hacohen’s (2023) experimental work, I show that only highly atomic nominals in Grimm’s (2012) sense can be differentially marked. I further demonstrate that these nominals are mappable onto a referential address and are able to hold an anaphoric relation with a clitic. The big-DP, i.e., the DP and the corresponding clitic which form a single unit, accurately predicts that elements that are mappable onto a referential address are able to be linked to a pronoun. I argue that the DOM structure is generated only if the nominal is merged as part of the big-DP. However, the syntactic analysis does not fully account for the overall distribution of DOM. I demonstrate that DOM has certain pragmatic properties, which raises the question of how they arise. Adopting Kučerová and Zarka (in prep), I argue that DOM in NGA functions as an illocutionary marker that grammatically marks the asserted proposition as a non-default Discourse Commitment (Gunlogson 2001; Farkas & Bruce 2010) giving rise to a range of speech acts including emotive content. It is suggested that the obligatory illocutionary properties of DOM stem from structural economy. Since DOM involves an additional structure (clitic doubling and an applicative projection), which is absent in non-DOM counterparts, this additional structure triggers interpretive effects that would not be available otherwise (e.g., Fox 2000; Sichel and Wiltschko 2021). The analysis put forward in this thesis is specific to NGA. It is an open question whether it extends to other languages with DOM. Similar to NGA, DOM in languages like Romanian (e.g., Hill & Tasmowski 2008) and Catalan (e.g., Escandell-Vidal 2009) is associated with discourse pragmatic effects, but further research is required for other languages. The proposed analysis of DOM raises the question of whether a uniform analysis of DOM is possible by unifying the different DOM systems as instantiations of economy-driven interpretive effects. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Differential Object Marking (henceforth, DOM) in Spanish involves the use of the object marker a to overtly mark certain direct objects (Juan conoce a la mamá de Pedro.). The literature on this phenomenon is extensive. Previous typological/functionalist work (e.g. Aissen 2003, Croft 2003, von Heusinger and Kaiser 2007) has characterized the likelihood of DOM in terms of properties of the direct object including animacy, definiteness and specificity. According to recent grammatical variationist work on Mexican Spanish (Lizarraga Navarro and Mora-Bustos 2010), these two factors are the most highly correlated with overt DOM in Spanish. While some empirical studies corroborate portions of these findings (e.g. von Heusinger 2008), none have provided a complete quantified analysis of the entire set of features as discussed in terms of the Referentiality Scale (von Heusinger 2008) including specificity and non-argumentals for Modern European Spanish. This empirically-based corpus study investigates the distribution of DOM in the 20th and 21st Century European Spanish focusing on the features comprising the scales of animacy and referentiality. The results obtained in this study provide evidence that the referential features like specificity and definiteness are indeed significant factors that condition DOM along with verb type. This study also sheds light on the validity of the claim made in diachronic work for the systematic spread of DOM (e.g. Melis 1995, Laca 2006, von Heusinger and Kaiser 2010). / text

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In this dissertation, I investigate various aspects of object marking and how these manifest themselves in the signed modality. The main focus is on Swedish Sign Language (SSL), the national sign language of Sweden, which is the topic of investigation in all five studies. Two of the studies adopt a comparative perspective, including other sign languages as well. The studies comprise a range of data, including corpus data, elicited production, and acceptability judgments, and combine quantitative and qualitative methods in the analyses. The dissertation begins with an overview of the topics of valency, argument structure, and object marking, primarily from a spoken language perspective. Here, the interactions between semantics and morphosyntax are presented from a typological perspective, introducing differential object marking as a key concept. With regard to signed language, object marking is discussed in terms of both verbal and nominal strategies. Verbal strategies of object marking among sign languages include directional verbs, object handshape classifiers, and embodied perspective in signing. The first study investigates the use of directionality and object handshapes as object marking strategies in Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), Israeli Sign Language (ISL), and SSL. It is shown that the strategies generally display different alignments in terms of the types of objects targeted, which is uniform across languages, but that directionality is much more marginal in ABSL than in the other two languages. Also, we see that there is a connection between object marking strategies and the animacy of the object, and that the strategies, object animacy, and word order preferences interact. In the second and third studies, SSL is investigated with regard to the transitive–reflexive distinction. Here, we see that there are interactional effects between object handshapes and the perspective taken by the signer. This points to intricate iconic motivations of combining and structuring complex verb sequences, such as giving preference to agent focusing structures (e.g., agent perspective and handling handshapes). Furthermore, the use of space is identified as a crucial strategy for reference tracking, especially when expressing semantically transitive events. Nominal strategies include object pronouns and derivations of the sign PERSON. The fourth study provides a detailed account of the object pronoun OBJPRO in SSL, which is the first in-depth description of this sign. It is found that the sign is in widespread use in SSL, often corresponds closely to object pronouns of spoken Swedish, and is argued to be grammaticalized from the lexical sign PERSON. In the final study, the possible existence of object pronouns in other sign languages is investigated by using a sample of 24 languages. This analysis reveals that the feature is found mostly in the Nordic countries, suggesting areal contact phenomena. However, the study also shows that there are a number of derivations of PERSON, such as reflexive pronouns, agreement auxiliaries, and case markers. The use of PERSON as a source of grammaticalization for these functions is attributed to both semantic and phonological properties of the sign. This dissertation is unique in that it is dedicated to the topic of object marking in the signed modality. It brings a variety of perspectives and methods together in order to investigate the domain of object marking, cross-linguistically and cross-modally.

O objetivo principal deste trabalho é refletir sobre como é construída a relação entre definitude e Caso no hebraico por meio da análise do Construct State e do fenômeno da Marcação Diferencial de Objeto. Dessa forma, pretendemos com essa pesquisa suscitar reflexões sobre o fenômeno da Definitude Espraiada, sobre a Teoria do Caso, sobre a formação do Construct State e dos compounds na sintaxe e sobre a semântica do et. Utilizamos para a análise dos dados o arcabouço teórico da Morfologia Distribuída (Cf. HALLE; MARANTZ (1993), HALLE (1997) e MARANTZ (1997)), além das últimas observações feitas acerca do Programa Minimalista (Cf. CHOMSKY (1998, 2001)), ambos desenvolvimentos recentes da Teoria Gerativa. Assim sendo, de modo diferente de outras análises do Construct State, que não levam em consideração os compostos, nossa análise proporciona uma explicação para a formação, tanto do Construct State, quanto dos compounds, na sintaxe, focalizando a estrutura de cada uma dessas construções: o primeiro possuindo uma estrutura composta de duas raízes abstratas e o segundo constituído apenas por uma raiz. A estrutura dos compounds procura refletir a não composicionalidade entre os dois nomes que o formam. Já a estrutura do Construct State privilegia a composicionalidade dos membros do construto, a Definitude Espraiada e a não modificação direta do núcleo. Enfim, sugerimos que a relação entre Caso e definitude no hebraico seja uma relação formal e dependente. Formal, porque ela se expressa por meio dos traços dos nominais que devem ser valorados, checados, mantidos para a inserção de conteúdo fonológico e, até mesmo, inseridos tardiamente pelo Componente Morfológico. Dependente, porque sem a definitude, Caso não pode ser checado. / The main aim of this work is to investigate the relationship between definiteness and Case in Hebrew. This will be done by analyzing the Construct State and the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking. By doing so, we intend to shed some light on the phenomenon of Definiteness Spreading, on the Case Theory, on the Construct State and syntactic compounds and on the semantics of ´et. In order to analyze the data, we worked within the framework of Distributed Morphology (Cf. HALLE; MARANTZ (1993), HALLE (1997) e MARANTZ (1997)), considering, as well, the Minimalist Program (Cf. CHOMSKY (1998, 2001)), both of them, recent developments of Generative Theory. Due to this fact - and differently from other Construct State analysis that dont take the compounds into consideration our analysis provides an explanation for the formation of both the Construct State and the syntactic compounds. This is achieved by focusing on the structure of these constructions: the former is a structure derived from two abstract roots, and the later is formed by a single root. The structure of the compounds aims at reflecting the non-compositional interpretation, which is typical in these cases. The Construct State structure, on the other hand, emphasizes the compositionality in its interpretation, the Definiteness Spreading and the non-direct modification of the head. In other words, we suggest that the relationship between Case and definiteness in Hebrew is a formal and dependent one. It is formal because it is expressed by the features of the nominal that must be valued, checked, maintained for proper insertion of phonological content, and late-inserted by the Morphological Component; and it is dependent because Case cannot be checked without definiteness.

O objetivo principal deste trabalho é refletir sobre como é construída a relação entre definitude e Caso no hebraico por meio da análise do Construct State e do fenômeno da Marcação Diferencial de Objeto. Dessa forma, pretendemos com essa pesquisa suscitar reflexões sobre o fenômeno da Definitude Espraiada, sobre a Teoria do Caso, sobre a formação do Construct State e dos compounds na sintaxe e sobre a semântica do et. Utilizamos para a análise dos dados o arcabouço teórico da Morfologia Distribuída (Cf. HALLE; MARANTZ (1993), HALLE (1997) e MARANTZ (1997)), além das últimas observações feitas acerca do Programa Minimalista (Cf. CHOMSKY (1998, 2001)), ambos desenvolvimentos recentes da Teoria Gerativa. Assim sendo, de modo diferente de outras análises do Construct State, que não levam em consideração os compostos, nossa análise proporciona uma explicação para a formação, tanto do Construct State, quanto dos compounds, na sintaxe, focalizando a estrutura de cada uma dessas construções: o primeiro possuindo uma estrutura composta de duas raízes abstratas e o segundo constituído apenas por uma raiz. A estrutura dos compounds procura refletir a não composicionalidade entre os dois nomes que o formam. Já a estrutura do Construct State privilegia a composicionalidade dos membros do construto, a Definitude Espraiada e a não modificação direta do núcleo. Enfim, sugerimos que a relação entre Caso e definitude no hebraico seja uma relação formal e dependente. Formal, porque ela se expressa por meio dos traços dos nominais que devem ser valorados, checados, mantidos para a inserção de conteúdo fonológico e, até mesmo, inseridos tardiamente pelo Componente Morfológico. Dependente, porque sem a definitude, Caso não pode ser checado. / The main aim of this work is to investigate the relationship between definiteness and Case in Hebrew. This will be done by analyzing the Construct State and the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking. By doing so, we intend to shed some light on the phenomenon of Definiteness Spreading, on the Case Theory, on the Construct State and syntactic compounds and on the semantics of ´et. In order to analyze the data, we worked within the framework of Distributed Morphology (Cf. HALLE; MARANTZ (1993), HALLE (1997) e MARANTZ (1997)), considering, as well, the Minimalist Program (Cf. CHOMSKY (1998, 2001)), both of them, recent developments of Generative Theory. Due to this fact - and differently from other Construct State analysis that dont take the compounds into consideration our analysis provides an explanation for the formation of both the Construct State and the syntactic compounds. This is achieved by focusing on the structure of these constructions: the former is a structure derived from two abstract roots, and the later is formed by a single root. The structure of the compounds aims at reflecting the non-compositional interpretation, which is typical in these cases. The Construct State structure, on the other hand, emphasizes the compositionality in its interpretation, the Definiteness Spreading and the non-direct modification of the head. In other words, we suggest that the relationship between Case and definiteness in Hebrew is a formal and dependent one. It is formal because it is expressed by the features of the nominal that must be valued, checked, maintained for proper insertion of phonological content, and late-inserted by the Morphological Component; and it is dependent because Case cannot be checked without definiteness.

In this dissertation, I investigate a number of interrelated developments affecting the morphosyntax of nouns in Cappadocian Greek. I specifically focus on the development of differential object marking, the loss of grammatical gender distinctions, and the neuterisation of noun inflection. My aim is to provide a diachronic account of the innovations that Cappadocian has undergone in the three domains mentioned above. !ll the innovations examined in this study have the effect of rendering the morphology and syntax of nouns in Cappadocian more like that of neuters. On account of the historical and sociolinguistic circumstances in which Cappadocian developed as well as of the superficial similarity of their outcomes to equivalent structures in Turkish, previous research has overwhelmingly treated the Cappadocian developments as instances of contact-induced change that resulted from the influence of Turkish. In this study, I examine the Cappadocian innovations from a language-internal point of view and in comparison with parallel developments attested in the other Modern Greek dialects of Asia Minor, namely Pontic, Rumeic, Pharasiot and Silliot. My comparative analysis of a wide range of dialect-internal, cross-dialectal and cross-linguistic typological evidence shows that language contact with Turkish can be identified as the main cause of change only in the case of differential object marking. On the other hand, with respect to the origins of the most pervasive innovations in gender and noun inflection, I argue that they go back to the common linguistic ancestor of the modern Asia Minor Greek dialects and do not owe their development to language contact with Turkish. I show in detail that the superficial similarity of these latter innovations’ outcomes to their Turkish equivalents in each case represents the final stage in a long series of typologically plausible, language-internal developments whose early manifestations predate the intensification of Cappadocian–Turkish linguistic and cultural exchange. These findings show that diachronic change in Cappadocian is best understood when examined within a larger Asia Minor Greek context. On the whole, they make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the history of Cappadocian and the Asia Minor Greek dialects as well as to Modern Greek dialectology more generally, and open a fresh round of discussion on the origin and development of other innovations attested in these dialects that are considered by historical linguists and Modern Greek dialectologists to be untypically Greek or contact-induced or both.

Ce travail vise à proposer une hypothèse rendant compte de l’alternance entre les objets accusatifs précédés de la préposition a et les objets accusatifs sans préposition dans un texte espagnol du XIIIe siècle, la Primera crónica general, et à mettre au point une méthodologie permettant d’évaluer la validité de cette hypothèse et éventuellement de la faire évoluer. La première partie explique comment a été constitué le corpus, c’est-à-dire comment ont été sélectionnés et classés les cas à étudier. La deuxième partie évoque les principaux travaux de la bibliographie qui ont inspiré l’hypothèse de travail. La troisième partie présente cette dernière ainsi que la méthodologie d’analyse du corpus. L’hypothèse de travail repose sur les notions de topicalité et de thématisme. La topicalité d’un participant est définie ici comme l’aptitude de ce dernier à constituer aux yeux du locuteur un thème du discours. Elle dépend du degré auquel le locuteur peut s’identifier à ce participant, et on peut l’évaluer théoriquement en fonction de quatre hiérarchies : personne, animation, identification, agentivité. Des facteurs contextuels peuvent modifier la topicalité relative réelle du participant par rapport à sa topicalité relative théorique. Le thématisme est défini ici comme la propriété possédée par un participant qui est aux yeux du locuteur le thème d’un énoncé donné. L’hypothèse relie la présence de a à un objet dont le référent a une topicalité et un thématisme égaux ou supérieurs à ceux du sujet. La méthodologie d’analyse du corpus repose sur la constitution de groupes homogènes quant à la topicalité théorique relative du référent de l’objet, puis sur l’observation détaillée de la topicalité relative réelle et du thématisme relatif des référents des objets de chaque groupe. La quatrième partie décrit l’analyse du corpus selon cette méthodologie, analyse qui permet de valider l’hypothèse tout en l’enrichissant de plusieurs hypothèses complémentaires. / This research aims to formulate a theory accounting for the alternation between prepositional accusatives and non-prepositional accusatives in a Spanish text from the XIIIth century, the Primera crónica general, and also to propose a method assessing the validity of this theory and allowing for potential improvements. The first part describes the elaboration of the corpus, the selection and classification of occurrences. The second part gives an overview of the major research works amongst the bibliographical references which inspired the working theory. The third part presents this working theory and the method for corpus analysis. The theory rests upon the discourse functions of topicality and 'thematism'. Topicality of a participant can be defined as the aptitude of the participant in the eyes of the speaker to become a theme of discourse. It relies on the speaker's degree of identification with the participant, and one can theoretically evaluate this in terms of four criteria : person, animacy, identification, agency. Contextual factors can modify the actual topicality of a participant compared to its theoretical topicality. 'Thematism' is defined here as the property of a participant perceived by the speaker as the theme of an utterance. The theory associates a-marking with an object whose referent's topicality and 'thematism' is equal or superior to the referent of the subject. The method for corpus analysis relies upon the classification into groups of objects whose referents have the same relative theoretical topicality, followed by a detailed observation of the relative actual topicality and the relative 'thematism' of referents within each group. The fourth part is devoted to describing the results of the corpus analysis, allowing for the verification of the theory whilst enriching it with additional theoretical points.

This thesis deals with direct object nouns case-marked differentially. According to the commonly assumed generalization nouns marked with ACC case are prototypical objects representing high transitivity, whereas nouns marked with non-accusative cases are not. However, such a view ignores the possibility of a much finer distinction and fails to account for empirical data from languages with rich case morphology, such as Ukrainian. Given the complexity of the phenomenon under study the main objective of our investigation is to account exhaustively for all possible instances of non-accusative case marking and case alternations on direct objects in Ukrainian trying to classify and analyze the data by specifying the factors that condition the distinction ‘accusative versus non-accusative case marking’ and by integrating the phenomenon of differential object marking (DOM) into a formal model. We present DOM as a phenomenon that, together with the phenomenon of unaccusativity, can be subsumed under a broader concept of non-accusativity (defined as inability of verbs to assign ACC case). In this context we show that in Ukrainian and French morphosyntactic case realization has semantic underpinnings and that issues related to case valuation emanate from the intersection of different phenomena – DOM and nominal incorporation, DOM and verb typology, DOM and the process of (de)transitivization, and so on. However, the (morphosyntactic) visibility of those points of intersection varies from one language to another. Generativist distinction between syntactic (abstract) and morphological cases as well as the functionalist idea that case markings can be characterized as morphemes having different functional applications constitute the basis of our analysis of data. Using the typological views of these two approaches on the category of case as guidelines in our classification of collected data, we resort to minimalist formalism. Case is treated as an uninterpretable feature and a clear distinction is drawn between two types of case valuation – case checking and case assignment. Structural cases are checked during verb-raising and inherent (lexical) cases (among which we find predicate and default cases) are assigned either by a weak (or defective) v or by (an overt or null) preposition (P) in situ.

This thesis deals with direct object nouns case-marked differentially. According to the commonly assumed generalization nouns marked with ACC case are prototypical objects representing high transitivity, whereas nouns marked with non-accusative cases are not. However, such a view ignores the possibility of a much finer distinction and fails to account for empirical data from languages with rich case morphology, such as Ukrainian. Given the complexity of the phenomenon under study the main objective of our investigation is to account exhaustively for all possible instances of non-accusative case marking and case alternations on direct objects in Ukrainian trying to classify and analyze the data by specifying the factors that condition the distinction ‘accusative versus non-accusative case marking’ and by integrating the phenomenon of differential object marking (DOM) into a formal model. We present DOM as a phenomenon that, together with the phenomenon of unaccusativity, can be subsumed under a broader concept of non-accusativity (defined as inability of verbs to assign ACC case). In this context we show that in Ukrainian and French morphosyntactic case realization has semantic underpinnings and that issues related to case valuation emanate from the intersection of different phenomena – DOM and nominal incorporation, DOM and verb typology, DOM and the process of (de)transitivization, and so on. However, the (morphosyntactic) visibility of those points of intersection varies from one language to another. Generativist distinction between syntactic (abstract) and morphological cases as well as the functionalist idea that case markings can be characterized as morphemes having different functional applications constitute the basis of our analysis of data. Using the typological views of these two approaches on the category of case as guidelines in our classification of collected data, we resort to minimalist formalism. Case is treated as an uninterpretable feature and a clear distinction is drawn between two types of case valuation – case checking and case assignment. Structural cases are checked during verb-raising and inherent (lexical) cases (among which we find predicate and default cases) are assigned either by a weak (or defective) v or by (an overt or null) preposition (P) in situ.