A few ideas I can think of: -
- an accusative pronoun;
a demonstrative or deictic marker;
a preposition/postposition;
a verbal object affix.
Yes, exactly that. There is a parallel development in Bengali, which has an animate accusative -ke which is ultimately from PIE *kʷoi 'whom (dative)'. Both Spanish and Bengali thus turned a dative marker into an animate accusative marker.k1234567890y wrote:It seems that the accusative marker can also develop from adpositions(and adpositions can develop from verbs(or nouns) )
I have never learned Spanish, but I have read the wikipedia article about differential object marking, and it seems that in Spanish, the preposition a ("to") has also become a mark for direct objects when the direct object is an animate noun(examples taken from wikipedia):
Pedro besó a Lucía. = Peter kissed Lucy.(the preposition a is required in this case, as "Lucy" is a human being)
Pedro vio (a) la gata. = Peter saw the (female) cat.(the preposition a can be used here, but it is optional in this case, as "cat" is something animate and is not a human being)
but
Pedro besó el retrato. = Peter kissed the picture.(the preposition a cannot be used in this case, as "picture" is something inanimate)
Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
ok thank youPole, the wrote:Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
You can see the process at work in contemporary Spanish. Originally, a personal was only used with human objects (thus the name). It has since spread (optionally) to non-human animates, but the criteria vary by speaker. It seems its most common when the animal is "personalised" in some way (such as a pet) and is unidiomatic with those which are unlikely to be perceived affectionately and/or individually (such as insects and other vermin).k1234567890y wrote:ok thank youPole, the wrote:Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
Does Bengali still distinguish datives?WeepingElf wrote: There is a parallel development in Bengali, which has an animate accusative -ke which is ultimately from PIE *kʷoi 'whom (dative)'. Both Spanish and Bengali thus turned a dative marker into an animate accusative marker.
Thank you for your informationlinguoboy wrote:You can see the process at work in contemporary Spanish. Originally, a personal was only used with human objects (thus the name). It has since spread (optionally) to non-human animates, but the criteria vary by speaker. It seems its most common when the animal is "personalised" in some way (such as a pet) and is unidiomatic with those which are unlikely to be perceived affectionately and/or individually (such as insects and other vermin).k1234567890y wrote:ok thank youPole, the wrote:Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
"Analogy", narrowly defined, is really the only way you develop a general rule (e.g. "use X to mark accusative"). It's probably more useful to talk in terms of "reanalysis" - instead of a rule that a marks indirect object, it becomes reanalysed as X marking either direct or indirect object.k1234567890y wrote: It seems that analogy is a good way to develop an universal accusative marker....
Thank you - the verb in particular is a fun idea to play around with.zompist wrote:Sure: from a verb, like Mandarin bǎ, original meaning 'grasp'.
Or an article. German has this-- the definite article tells case and gender even if the noun does not.
According to Wikipedia, not. Hence, the -ke case, which marks both direct and indirect objects, is called the objective. With inanimate nouns, the objective form is the same as the nominative.So Haleza Grise wrote:Does Bengali still distinguish datives?WeepingElf wrote: There is a parallel development in Bengali, which has an animate accusative -ke which is ultimately from PIE *kʷoi 'whom (dative)'. Both Spanish and Bengali thus turned a dative marker into an animate accusative marker.
Also, in Polish, some recent borrowings like e-mail, SMS, e-book are more likely to be inflected along the masculine animate paradigm (with Acc. identical to Gen.) even though their native counterparts would be inflected like inanimates (Acc. identical to Nom.).linguoboy wrote:You can see the process at work in contemporary Spanish. Originally, a personal was only used with human objects (thus the name). It has since spread (optionally) to non-human animates, but the criteria vary by speaker. It seems its most common when the animal is "personalised" in some way (such as a pet) and is unidiomatic with those which are unlikely to be perceived affectionately and/or individually (such as insects and other vermin).k1234567890y wrote:ok thank youPole, the wrote:Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
I remember hearing in one of my lectures about an Australian language (not sure which one exactly but I am pretty sure it was Jingulu) with a four-gender system: masculine, feminine, vegetable, neuter. It has penis in the vegetable gender because the prototypical member of that class is gourd-shaped and it generally contains long, thin objects.Pole, the wrote: Similarly, penis and its synonyms tend to be animate even though other body parts don't.
Are there grammatical sentences in Spanish which employ "a" twice, once as a dative marker and as an animate accusative marker (on the theme)?linguoboy wrote: You can see the process at work in contemporary Spanish. Originally, a personal was only used with human objects (thus the name). It has since spread (optionally) to non-human animates, but the criteria vary by speaker. It seems its most common when the animal is "personalised" in some way (such as a pet) and is unidiomatic with those which are unlikely to be perceived affectionately and/or individually (such as insects and other vermin).
Not a slave trader, I see ...Šọ̈́gala wrote:Obviously, animates (and people especially) are rare as the theme of dar.
I find it fascinating that we are seeing the development of a new accusative marker in a major Western European language after having lacking such marking for over 1500 years!linguoboy wrote:You can see the process at work in contemporary Spanish. Originally, a personal was only used with human objects (thus the name). It has since spread (optionally) to non-human animates, but the criteria vary by speaker. It seems its most common when the animal is "personalised" in some way (such as a pet) and is unidiomatic with those which are unlikely to be perceived affectionately and/or individually (such as insects and other vermin).k1234567890y wrote:ok thank youPole, the wrote:Yes.k1234567890y wrote:Thank you, WeepingElf
however, there's another question, how can an accusative marker spread to every word regardless of the definiteness or animacy? by analogy?
Probably because it has a mind of it's own?Pole, the wrote:Similarly, penis and its synonyms tend to be animate even though other body parts don't.