Exploring the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) in Spanish as a second language

The aim of this chapter is to explore the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) in Spanish L2 and thus probe the higher level boundaries of the PT framework. In coining the term DOM, Bossong (1983-84, 1991) presented cross-linguistic data on more than 300 languages presenting this grammatical characteristic, whereby direct objects (OBJs) of transitive Vs either remain unmarked or are overtly marked by case or agreement on the basis of some semantic or pragmatic feature. This marking has since attracted considerable attention in linguistic theory (e.g., Aissen 2003; Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011; Leonetti 2004; Torrego 1998, 1999, among many others). Unlike the many purely structural approaches, Dalrymple & Nikolaeva’s (2011: 1-2) point out that DOM, in the many languages where it manifests itself, “encompasses syntactic, semantic and informational-structural differences between marked and unmarked objects”. So they propose that marked OBJs are associated, synchronically or historically, with the information-structure role of topic. Where the connection between marked OBJs and topicality has been lost through grammaticalisation, marked OBJs become associated with semantic features typical of topics, such as animacy, definiteness and specificity (Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011:1-2). Spanish is one of the languages exhibiting DOM, whereby some OBJs are marked with the preposition a, also known as marked accusative (Torrego 1998), prepositional accusative, personal a, or accusative a (Montrul & Bowles 2008; Tippets 2011).