The development of marked pronouns in Portuguese: the relation with hierarchical scales

Abstract

This squib investigates the adequacy of hierarchical scales to describe the development of Differential Object Marking in Portuguese. Cases in which the direct object is marked by a preposition are classified as instances of Differential Object Marking. Many studies claim that the development of the phenomenon can be described according to the hierarchical scales of animacy and definiteness. Such scales predict that the first stage of the development of the phenomenon will be first- and second-person pronouns and third-person pronouns would be marked only at a later stage. However, both Old Catalan and Old Romanian exhibit cases of violation of the scales in that third-person pronoun cases are more frequent than the occurrences of first- and second-person pronouns. The same violation is found in diachronic Portuguese. Therefore, the present squib proposes that marking first- and second-person pronouns would be redundant at the first stage of the development of the phenomenon and that the third-person pronoun is marked due to the presence of the [-PERSON] feature.