<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Dear all,</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">I am working on an experimental project on the effect of
discourse status on object marking, and would love to get your help with a
question I'm concerned with.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">In different languages, object marking is affected by unexpected
discourse status of arguments (e.g., topical objects in Persian, as suggested
by Dalrymple & Nikolaeva (2011)). I am interested in the emergence of such
systems.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">According to the literature I'm familiar with, topicality-based
marking often goes hand in hand with change of word order. For example, topical
objects can be initially marked only when they are dislocated. According to
Iemmolo (2010), this is the case with different Romance languages. Later on,
such marking can be extended to other objects which share features of
topicality-worthiness (e.g., animacy and definiteness), and word
order restrictions are lost. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Does anyone know of any other languages in which discourse-based
object marking is restricted (or was initially restricted) to particular word orders?</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Alternatively, does anyone know of any language in which,
diachronically, the effect of discourse status on differential object
marking was direct? By "direct" I mean that marking
occurred in situ in the earliest stages of grammaticalization without
having gone through word-order restrictions earlier.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Many thanks in advance,</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Shira Tal</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Ph.D. Student, Dept.
of Cognitive Science</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Hebrew University of
Jerusalem</span></p></div>