@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/bjl.19.03ble, author = "Bleam, Tonia", title = "The Role of Semantic Type in Differential Object Marking", journal= "Belgian Journal of Linguistics", year = "2005", volume = "19", number = "1", pages = "3-27", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.19.03ble", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/bjl.19.03ble", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "0774-5141", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "Spanish, like many other languages (e.g. Hindi), exhibits differential object marking (DOM). It is well-known that DOM seems to be sensitive to the animacy and/or specificity of the direct object (Bossong 1985, Aissen 2003). It is argued here that the Spanish prepositional accusative, or a-marking, is a realization of the features [+accusative] and [+animate] within a nominal projection containing a determiner (D). Nominal projections lacking D are property-denoting and are not a-marked. I show that there is a direct map between the presence or absence of a-marking and the semantic type of the (animate) direct object nominal.", }