Prepositional accusative
The prepositional accusative (sometimes also called "differential object marking") is a phenomenon that can be found primarily in Romance languages and Asian languages. This involves marking the direct object (accusative in case terminology ) with a preposition .
The setting of the preposition is, however, only semantically motivated, that is, it depends on the meaning of the following noun (this is why the prepositional accusative is sometimes also called "differential object marking"). If this names an animate object, the prepositional accusative is used. The specific and definitive characteristics also play a role (see examples below).
The prepositional accusative is grammaticalized in the following Romance languages: Spanish , Sardinian , Romanian , Portuguese . It is often in southern Italian dialects as well as in the Graubünden Romansh of the Engadine , but otherwise occurs in most of the popular Romance languages. It is assumed that in the Middle Ages all Romance languages were at the same stage of development and that these have moved differently from it over the centuries. Thus, under certain syntactic conditions, a prepositional accusative can also be found in Portuguese, in français populaire , in italiano popolare , in Gaskognischen , in Catalan , and in Occitan (mostly with pronouns: italiano popolare : ti aiuto a te ("I help you") instead of the standard Italian ti aiuto or also in French popular : il nous aide à nous ("he helps us", literally "he helps us to us") instead of the standard French il nous aide ).
Examples
- Object alive and human:
- German I see Johannes
- Spanish Veo a Juan (lit. "I look to John")
- Sardinian Bìdo a Juanne
- Romanian îl văd pe Ion
- If the object is not animate, the prepositional accusative is not used:
- German I see the house
- Spanish Veo la casa
- Sardinian Bìdo sa domo
- Romanian Văd casa
- In Portuguese , the prepositional accusative is used to ensure the clarity of sentences with the direct object before the verb (reverse order of the sentence):
- German They do not deceive the doctor
- Portuguese Ao médico é que nicht enganam
literature
- Bodo Müller: The morpheme-marked sentence object of the Romance languages (the so-called prepositional accusative). Journal for Romance Philology (ZrP). Volume 87, Issue 5-6, Pages 477-519, ISSN (Online) 1865-9063, ISSN (Print) 0049-8661, doi : 10.1515 / zrph.1971.87.5-6.477 , November 2009
- Helmut Lüdtke: Chapter Differential Object Marking in Romania , in: Helmut Lüdtke: The Origin of Romance Languages ; Dialectologia pluridimensionalis Romanica, No. 14; Kiel: Westensee, 2005; ISBN 3-931368-05-X ; Page 181–190.
- Natascha Müller, Beate Riemer: Generative Syntax of Romance Languages ; Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1998. In particular the chapter The Spanish and Sardinian accusative with 'a': preposition or case marking , pages 230–237.
- Harald Thun: Personal pronouns for things - a contribution to Romance syntax and text linguistics ; Tübingen: Narr, 1986; ISBN 3-87808-862-0 .
- Paula Perin dos Santos: Objeto Direto Preposicionado (in Portuguese) .
Web links
- Antonio Machicao y Priemer: Differential object marking in Spanish. Master's thesis, Humboldt University Berlin, February 18, 2010
- The personal accusative with a. Furtwangen University