Continuity and Innovation in Peruvian Spanish: Pragmatics and Contact in (Differential) Object Marking

Abstract

Elisabeth Mayer and Manuel Delicado Cantero analyze the evolution of differential object marking (DOM) on primary object marking in certain Peruvian Spanish contact varietes. In particular, they analyze the cases of extended DOM, that is, the extension of the prepositional accusative to topical inanimate objects. The authors argue that this change is regulated by pragmatic strategies, continuing the diachronically well-attested struggle between the dative and accusative for primary object status in monotransitive clauses. This constitutes continuity as well as innovation of differential object marking. The paper highlights the contact avenues which arguably favored such changes (between Quechua and Spanish, and between Andean Spanish and Standard Peruvian Spanish), thus illustrating the role of contact as an integral mechanism of change.