Differential object marking in the dialects of southern Italy

Abstract

This article undertakes a descriptive overview of the variation in the distribution and licensing of differential object marking across a wide range of dialects of the south of Italy. It is shown how variation in this area is not random, but follows patterns of structured variation which can be modelled in a scalar fashion in terms of four broad splits based on grammatical person, and on pronominal–nominal, head–phrasal and animacy/specificity oppositions. These four broad dimensions of variation are, in turn, demonstrated to conceal a number of more subtle differences of a microvariational nature. This microvariation, it is suggested, can be read not only horizontally as synchronic variation across the dialects, but also vertically to provide some key insights into the diachronic development of (Italo-)Romance DOM.