37.1889, Books: Differential Object Marking in Heritage Italo-Romance: Sorgini (2026)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1889. Tue May 26 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1889, Books: Differential Object Marking in Heritage Italo-Romance: Sorgini (2026)

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Date: 26-May-2026
From: Jan Martin [lotdissertations-fgw at uva.nl]
Subject: Differential Object Marking in Heritage Italo-Romance: Sorgini (2026)


Title: Differential Object Marking in Heritage Italo-Romance
Subtitle: A Microcontact Perspective
Series Title: LOT Dissertation Series
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke
(LOT)
           http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Book URL: https://dx.medra.org/10.48273/LOT0710

Author(s): Luana Sorgini

Paperback
ISBN:  978-94-6093-495-7
Pages: 673
Price: 61,00 euros

Abstract:

Languages constantly change, especially when they are spoken across
generations and in contact with other languages. One striking site of
such change is Differential Object Marking (DOM), the phenomenon
whereby only some direct objects are overtly marked, typically
depending on properties such as animacy, definiteness, or discourse
prominence. In Romance languages, DOM has a long and complex history,
often realised through the preposition a. Yet little is known about
how these systems evolve when Romance varieties are spoken as heritage
languages. This book explores DOM in heritage Italo-Romance varieties
spoken in Argentina, where descendants of Italian migrants grow up
bilingual and gradually become dominant in Argentinian Spanish, a
language with an extended and productive DOM system. Rather than
asking whether heritage speakers simply lose or borrow grammatical
structures, the study traces how DOM reshapes itself at the
intersection of grammar, discourse, and language contact.
Drawing on new fieldwork in Italy and Argentina, the book offers the
first systematic comparison of DOM across several Italo-Romance
varieties and their heritage counterparts. It shows that heritage DOM
does not result from straightforward transfer from Spanish. Instead,
contact accelerates changes already present in the homeland grammars,
producing innovative yet constrained systems. A detailed case study of
Friulian illustrates how DOM can emerge from structures linked to
topicality and experiencer arguments, gradually extending to new
contexts without replicating the Spanish pattern.
By combining syntactic theory, diachronic analysis, and fine-grained
empirical data, this book shows how grammatical systems survive,
adapt, and innovate in heritage languages.

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax

Language Family(ies): Romance-based
                      Spanish based




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