Resumen de Differential Object Marking in Romanian and Spanish: a contrastive analysis between differentially marked and unmarked direct objects
This paper discusses some aspects related to the syntax and semantics of Romanian direct objects (DOs) from a comparative stance with their Spanish counterparts. Spanish and Romanian differentially object marked DOs (DOMed DOs) function as KPs and may have a specific or a wide scope reading, they are disallowed in contexts requiring property denoting nominals and allowed in contexts necessitating nominals with ‘real argumenthood’ i.e., denoting entities or generalized quantifiers. The two languages differ with respect to unmarked DOs (which generally have a DP status): these pattern with DOMed DOs in Romanian. Spanish unmarked DOs, on the other hand, never show a specific or wide scope interpretation, they are not allowed in contexts which require entity denoting nominals but are suitable for contexts where property denoting expressions are required. We posit that the parameter differentiating between Romanian and Spanish concerns the division these languages make regarding DO types: while Spanish draws a line between KPs on the one hand and DPs and NPs/NumPs on the other, the relevant cut-off point in Romanian is that between KPs and DPs on the one hand and NPs/NumPs on the other. An analysis is proposed for Romanian, starting from these observations and building on López (2012)’s analysis for Spanish.
