Balkan Romance and Southern Italo-Romance: Differential Object Marking and Its Variation

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to examine in detail an area of the grammar where standard Romanian, a Balkan Sprachbund language of the Romance phylum, and the Romance dialects of Southern Italy (here we used the dialect of Ragusa, in South-East Sicily) appear to converge, namely differential object marking (DOM). When needed, additional observations from non-Romance Balkan languages were also taken into account. Romanian and Ragusa use a prepositional strategy for differential marking, in a conjunctive system of semantic specifications, of which one is normally humanness/animacy. However, despite these unifying traits, this paper also focuses on important loci of divergence, some of which have generally been ignored in the previous literature. For example, Ragusa does not easily permit clitic doubling and shows differences in terms of binding possibilities and positions of direct objects, two traits that set it aside from both Romanian and non-Romance Balkan languages; additionally, as opposed to Romanian, its prepositional DOM strategy cannot override humanness/animacy. The comparative perspective we adopt allow us to obtain an in-depth picture of differential marking in the Balkan and Romance languages.

1. Introduction

It has long been noticed that various Romance dialects of Southern Italy exhibit, at least on the surface, grammatical features that closely resemble phenomena independently seen in languages from the Balkan Sprachbund (Sandfeld 1930; Schaller 1975; Solta 1980; Manzini and Savoia 2005, 2018; a.o.). The taxonomy and more precise nature of such traits have been under investigation in a variety of approaches, be they descriptive typological or more formally oriented. An important question is whether these commonalities unite Southern Italo-Romance with the Balkan Romance phylum, extend to other language families in the Balkan Sprachbund or are superficial at best.

This paper contributes to this inquiry by examining differential object marking, an area of the grammar where standard Romanian (a Balkan Sprachbund language of the Romance phylum) and the Romance dialects of Southern Italy have been shown to converge, at least at a general level (Ledgeway 2000, 2023; Ledgeway et al. 2019; a.o.). As differential object marking is a phenomenon that gives rise to impressive variation not only cross-linguistically, but also intra-linguistically, the current work focuse on Romanian, as a major representative of Balkan Romance, which is compared to a Romance dialect of Southern Italy, the dialect of Ragusa in South-East Sicily (see Guardiano 2023 for further references).1 The results confirm, on the one hand, similarities between Romanian and Ragusa when it comes to the nature of differential object marking, for example, the use of a prepositional marker and sensitivity to humanness/animacy; on the other hand, various traits in the grammar of objects are present in Ragusa that distinguish it not only from Romanian, but also from non-Romance Balkan languages. Among these are the almost absence of clitic doubling (most instances of reduplication by pronominal reduced elements appear to be resumptive clitics, instead), the (although marginal) possibility to drop the differential marker under dislocation (as opposed to Romanian), or lack of correlation between differential marking and topicality (as opposed to non-Balkan Romance languages such as Albanian, Greek, or Bulgarian). As discussed in this paper, one source of such differences stems from the structural internal makeup of differentially marked objects (DPs with a [humanness] index in Ragusa, KPs in Romanian).

The examination of differential marking at a deep enough level thus reveal important finetuned hints into the nature of this phenomenon, its areal distribution, and its limits of variation; it also provides further insight into the problem of a shared basis between the Balkan Sprachbund and Romance languages of Southern Italy.

The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 2 starts with a brief introduction to differential object marking, narrowing down on its realization in the Balkan languages as well as the distinctions between clitic doubling and clitic resumption. Section 3 focuses on the Romanian strategy for the differential marking of objects and also emphasizes important differences between Romanian and non-Romance languages in the Balkans, which present robust strategies for differential object marking. Section 4 turns to a comparison between Romanian and Ragusa, illustrating their similarities and divergences. Section 5 is dedicated to reduplicating pronominal clitics in Ragusa; the patterns discussed indicate that clitic doubling seems to be non-existent or at most very restricted in the language. What looks like clitic doubling is, instead, more similar to clitic resumption. Section 6 focuses on the major differences observed between the relevant languages (more specifically, variation in the position and licensing of differentially marked objects) and evaluates their consequences at the theoretical level. Section 7 concludes this study.

2. Differential Object Marking: An Overview

It is not uncommon for the grammars of human languages to treat their direct objects in a non-uniform manner at the level of morphosyntax. In fact, many language families tend to organize their direct objects into separate classes, with an overwhelming tendency to signal the ones carrying specifications at the higher end of referentiality hierarchies via dedicated overt means. This split is at the core of the phenomenon known as differential object marking (DOM), which has been at the forefront of descriptive and formal research in modern linguistics (e.g., Silverstein 1976; Bossong 1985, 1991, 1998; Comrie 1989; Aissen 2003; Torrego 1998; Rodríguez-Mondoñedo 2007; López 2012; Baker 2015; Bárány 2018; Irimia 2023c).

A typical exemplification of splits in the class of objects comes from Turkish (Turkic). The direct object in (1)(b), interpreted as definite or specific, is differentially marked on the surface, through a suffix known in traditional grammars as the accusative case. It is contrasted to the direct object in (1)(a), which does not have such a morpheme and cannot refer to a specific entity. Also, it has been demonstrated (e.g., Kornfilt 1984, 1997; Bossong 1991, 1998; Enç 1991; von Heusinger and Kornfilt 2005; Öztürk 2005; Kamali 2015) that marked objects like kitabı in (1)(b) occupy a higher position than unmarked ones like kitap in (1)(a): for example, the differentially marked object can precede an indirect object (e.g., çoguğa in (1)(b), while the unmarked object cannot do so, therefore a sequence like kitap çoguğa would be ungrammatical in (1)(a).

(1)	a.	Ali	çoguğ-a	kitap	ver-iyor.
		Ali	child-dat	book	give-impf
		Lit. ‘Ali is book giving to the child.’
	b.	Ali	kitab-ı	çoguğ-a	ver-iyor.
		Ali	book-dom	child-dat	give-impf
		‘Ali is giving the book/a specific book to the child.’
		(Turkish, Kamali 2015, ex., 4a,b adapted)

Differential object marking in Turkish appears to respect a broad definiteness/specificity scale as in (2), drawing the cut-off point right at the specific indefinites.

(2)	Definiteness/specificity scale (adapted from Aissen 2003)
	Pronoun > name > definite > specific indefinite > non-specific

The splits seen in Turkish are only one of the possible semantic and morphosyntactic strategies employed by DOM cross-linguistically. The Balkan Sprachbund, a linguistic domain where differential object marking is particularly active (e.g., Bossong 1991; Kallulli 2000; Aissen 2003; Friedman 2008), exhibits various other morphosyntactic settings. Despite contact between Turkish and the Indo-European languages in this areal group, the latter show crucial differentiations. Importantly, the preferred morphosyntactic strategy does not employ an accusative case marker, and is, in fact, not uniform; more than one morphosyntactic mechanism can set aside various classes of direct objects, based on specifications such as givenness, specificity, definiteness, and animacy (see especially the contributions in Kallulli and Tasmowski 2008a). An important split is between non-Romance and Romance languages in the Balkans.

As discussed in the vast literature on the topic (see especially Miklosich 1862; Lopašov 1978; Assenova 1980, 2002; Berent 1980; Anagnostopoulou 1994a, 1994b, 2003, 2017; Leafgren 1997; Dimitrova-Vulchanova and Hellan 1999a, 1999b; Kallulli 2000, 2016; Franks and King 2000; Schick 2000; Schick and Beukema 2001; Tisheva and Dzonova 2002; Jaeger and Gerassimova 2002; Kallulli and Tasmowski 2008a; Tomić 2000, 2008; Friedman 2008; Krapova and Cinque 2008; Harizanov 2014; a.o.), clitic doubling is a robust differential object marking strategy in Balkan languages such as Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian: these languages normally employ clitic doubling to signal direct objects which are interpreted as specific, [+given], etc.

By contrast, Romanian, as a representative of the Romance family, uses a prepositional strategy for DOM which is highly sensitive to animacy. In the next two subsections, some brief details on non-Romance clitic doubling are provided; they are necessary in order to better frame the Romance pattern, which is the main goal of this paper.

2.1. Clitic Doubling as a DOM Strategy in Non-Romance Balkan Languages

The doubling clitic is a reduced pronominal element, which co-occurs with its associate (e.g., Kayne 1975; Strozer 1976; Rivas 1977; Lopašov 1978; Jaeggli 1982; Borer 1981, 1984; Rivero 1994; van Riemsdijk 1999; Linstedt 2000; Kallulli 2000, et subseq.; Tomić 2004, 2006; Friedman 2008; Kochovska 2010, 2011; Beukema and den Dikken 2000; Preminger 2009); the latter can be a full pronoun, a referential DP, or even a clause. If in languages like Albanian or Macedonian, both direct and indirect objects must be obligatorily clitic doubled in certain contexts (Lopašov 1978; Kallulli 2016), there is also the Greek or Bulgarian type, which is characterized by a higher degree of optionality (Anagnostopoulou 1994a, 1994b, 2003, 2017; Kallulli 1999, 2000; Guentchéva 2008; Krapova and Cinque 2008; a.o.). Given that we are interested in differential object marking (which normally excludes indirect objects), we will restrict our attention just to the general properties of clitic doubling of direct objects.

An undisputed property of clitic doubling is that it gives rise to various interpretive effects. In the clitic doubling Balkan languages, the vast literature has pointed out numerous correlates on the semantics and pragmatics side; a partial list of features associated with clitic doubled direct objects includes individuation, topic worthiness/topicality, prominence, definiteness (especially for Greek, Anagnostopoulou 1999), or Macedonian (Tomić 2000, 2004, 2008), specificity, familiarity, presuppositionality, referential stability, non-novelty, [+given], and D-linking (Kallulli 1999; Kallulli and Tasmowski 2008b, p. 20). In the example below from Albanian, the definite direct object is doubled by an accusative clitic and would be felicitous only in a context in which the definite inanimate is not novel in the discourse.2

(3)	E	botoi	librin	më	në	fund.
	cl.acc.3sg3	published	book.def.acc	at	long	last
	‘She/published the book (at long last).			(Albanian, Kallulli 2016, 5a, p. 164)

2.2. Clitic Doubling and Clitic Resumption

Most, if not all, languages that grammaticalize doubling clitics provide evidence that these elements do not act as a uniform category. Importantly, a crucial difference is established between two classes of phenomena, more precisely clitic doubling and clitic resumption. These distinctions encompass, but are not restricted to, the prosody—that is, a heavy intonational break separating the dislocated object that is subsequently resumed by a clitic in the main clause.

To better illustrate the difference between clitic doubling and clitic resumption, we can provide some discussion with respect to Bulgarian (Balkan Slavic); in this language, it has been shown that some types of postverbal direct objects must be obligatorily clitic doubled, despite the otherwise optional nature of clitic doubling in the language. These are mainly accusative experiencers of psych and physical perception predicates or direct objects of various types of modal or existential verbs (see especially Krapova and Cinque 2008 for a complete list and for the relevant examples), which trigger obligatory clitic doubling4, regardless of whether the direct object DP is novel in the discourse, carries nuclear stress (as is characteristic of focus, which normally blocks clitic doubling), and is not separated from the main clause by a heavy intonational break.

When it comes to dislocated objects (to the left or to the right), the doubling clitic appears to have a slightly distinct function, being regulated by constraints related to topicality, specificity, or the presence of a [+given] feature. In these configurations, the clitic functions as resumptive, and when the right conditions are met, it becomes obligatory even with those predicates that do not require clitic doubling on their in situ direct objects.5

It seems, thus, that two important distinctions must be made for Bulgarian: (i) between objects that involve dislocation and presuppose a heavy intonational break under clitic resumption and objects that do not involve dislocation and a heavy intonational break but can still be doubled by a clitic; (ii) in the latter class, there can be objects where a clitic double is obligatory regardless of information structure and contexts where there is a correlation between a doubling clitic and a [+given] feature. These two latter subtypes do not involve dislocation and a sharp intonational break, and thus there can be instances of genuine clitic doubling involving optionality. In any case, the dislocation signaled prosodically presents important differences and must be set aside as it involves a resumptive clitic. In this work, we have taken into consideration the prosodic effects, in the sense of a heavy intonational break, and not the variable of optionality. In fact, as we will also see in Romanian, there can be instances in which clitic doubling is optional, even though they are clearly not contexts of clitic resumption based on dislocation (because, among others, the clitic double is still dependent on humanness, as opposed to clitic resumption which does not have this restriction).6

Differences between clitic doubling and clitic resumption are clear in another Balkan language, namely Greek. As discussed by Anagnostopoulou (1994a, 1994b), clitics resuming left dislocated objects are possible with indefinites and not only with definites; in fact, non-dislocated indefinites might need special conditions to be clitic doubled in Greek (see also Kazazis and Pentheroudakis 1976). In turn, Tomić (2008) and Kochovska (2010, 2011) have discussed important distinctions between clitic doubling and clitic resumption in Macedonian. In

Table 1. Clitic resumption and clitic doubling.

Clitic Resumption	Clitic Doubling
Overt dislocation to the left or to the right periphery	Lack of overt dislocation
Heavy intonational break	Absence of an intonational break
[+given] (generally, in Balkan non-Romance languages)	Obligatory in some instances regardless of the presence of [+given] features, e.g., with tonic 1st and 2nd person pronouns (Albanian, etc.), psych predicates (Bulgarian, etc.)
	Optional in some contexts, as regulated by [+given] (Bulgarian, etc.)

, we include a summary of the most important differences between clitic resumption and clitic doubling.

3. Differential Object Marking in Romanian

Romanian is well known for its complex patterns of differential object marking (Farkas 1978; Dobrovie-Sorin 1994; Cornilescu 2000; von Heusinger and Onea 2008; Tigău 2010, 2011; Irimia 2020a, 2020b, 2021, 2023b, 2023c; Hill and Mardale 2021; a.o.), which set it aside in the larger Balkan setting, assimilating it to the Romance languages (e.g., Niculescu 1965; Sornicola 1997; Rohlfs 1971, 1973; Roegiest 1979; Bossong 1991, 1998; Torrego 1998; Aissen 2003; Fiorentino 2003; Leonetti 2003, 2008; Ormazabal and Romero 2007, 2013; Rodríguez-Mondoñedo 2007; Escandell-Vidal 2009; Iemmolo 2010; López 2012; Kabatek et al. 2021; Gravely 2021a, 2021b; Irimia and Pineda 2022; Ledgeway 2023; Zdrojewski 2023; a.o.). The differences are not only morphosyntactic but also affect the interpretive side.

First, the primary morphological means is not clitic doubling (as in non-Romance Balkan, see the example in (3) above from Albanian), but a preposition-like element, namely pe, homophonous with the locative ‘on’ in modern Romanian, as shown in (4)7. Secondly, notions related to topicality, definiteness, or specificity that are at work in non-Romance Balkan languages are not the regulating factors for Romanian DOM; humanness/animacy instead plays an important role (Farkas 1978; Dobrovie-Sorin 1994; Cornilescu 2000; von Heusinger and Onea 2008; Tigău 2010, 2011; Irimia 2020a, 2020b, 2021, 2023b, 2023c; Hill and Mardale 2021; a.o.), as evidenced by the contrast between (5)(a) and (b), (6)(a) and (b), and (7)(a) and (b). The inanimate object in (5)(b), (6)(b), and (7)(b) does not permit differential marking, regardless of whether it has a specific or a non-specific interpretation and regardless of whether it is [+given].

(4)	Ai	lăsat	cărţile	pe	masă.
	have.2sg	left	book.f.pl.def.f.pl	on	table
	‘You left the books on the table.’					(Romanian)

(5)	a.	Au	invitat	*(pe)	cineva	(foarte important)		la	nuntă.
		have.3pl	invited	dom	somebody	(very important)		at	wedding
		‘They have invited somebody very important to the wedding.’
	b.	Vor	(*pe)	ceva	anume,	mai	precis	diamantul
		want.3pl	dom	something	certain	more	precise	diamond.def.n.sg
		din	vitrină	(de care	ţi-am			zis	deja).
		from	window	(of which	cl.dat.2sg-have.1			told	already)
		‘The want something precisely, more specifically the diamond in the shop window (which I already told you about).’							(Romanian)

As another exemplification, the contrast in (6) below shows that the inanimate object in (6)(b) is not grammatical with the pe marker, regardless of whether it is interpreted as given in a context or not.

(6)	a.	Am	văzut(-o)	pe	fata	frumoasă.
		have.1	seen(-cl.acc.3f.sg)	dom	girl.def.f.sg	beautiful.f.sg
		‘I saw the beautiful girl.’
	b.	Am	văzut(*-o)	(*pe)	floarea	frumoasă	(pe
		have.1	seen(-cl.acc.3f.sg)	dom	flower.def.f.sg	beautiful.f.sg	(dom
		care	mi-ai	arătat-o		şi	ieri).
		which	me.dat-have.2sg	shown-cl.acc.3f.sg		and	yesterday
		‘I saw the beautiful flower (that you also showed me yesterday).’

In turn, example (6)(a) shows another property of Romanian grammar, namely clitic doubling of objects; however, only certain types of pe objects can be clitic doubled and only the accusative form of the clitic is admissible. This dependence of clitic doubling on differential marking sets aside Romanian in the larger Balkan Sprachbund.

(7)	a.	Am	adus-o		pe	fata	colegilor
		have.1	brought-cl.acc.3f.sg		dom	girl.def.f.sg	colleague.m.pl.gen.m.pl
		mei	la	noi.
		my.m.pl	at	we
		‘I brought my colleagues’ daughter to our place.’
	b.	Am	adus(*-o)		(*pe)	cartea	nouă.
		have.1	brought-cl.acc.3f.sg		dom	book.def.f.sg	new.def.f.sg
		‘I brought the new book.’					(Romanian)

A non-trivial challenge is that, despite the prominence of animacy, Romanian DOM configurations cannot be unified under this trait. There are numerous contexts where animacy is overridden; moreover, as we will see, there are also many cases where another cross-linguistic correlate of DOM, namely specificity, does not seem to play a role either. What Romanian illustrates instead are patterns that are typical of so-called ‘conjunctive DOM’ systems (Aissen 2003); at a purely descriptive level, the presence of more than one feature appears to be necessary for the special objects to receive dedicated marking. Traditionally, it is assumed that both the animacy and the definiteness/specificity scales are necessary:

(8)	Conjunctive DOM in Romanian:
(i)	Animacy/person: 1/2 > 3 > proper name > human > animate > inanimate (Aissen 2003)
(ii)	Specificity/definiteness: pronoun > name > definite > specific indefinite > non-specific (see also (2); Aissen 2003; Comrie 1989; a.o.)

For expository purposes, the presentation of Romanian prepositional DOM will take into account obligatory, optional, and ungrammatical contexts, following the simplified taxonomy in Irimia (2023b), enriched with various other examples (Niculescu 1965; Gramatica limbii române—Gramatica Academiei 1966; Farkas 1978; Dobrovie-Sorin 1994; Cornilescu 2000; GRL 2005/2006; von Heusinger and Onea 2008; Tigău 2010, 2011; GBRL 2010/2016; Pană Dindelegan 2013; Irimia 2020a, 2020b, 2021, 2023b, 2023c; Hill and Mardale 2021; a.o.). Subsequently, unification will be attempted in terms of configurational traits.

3.1. Obligatory Prepositional DOM

The class of obligatory DOM groups together not only contexts where humanness/animacy is relevant, but also various direct objects where animacy is overridden. As such, in this group, one can find both lexical DPs and various types of quantifiers. For example, tonic personal pronouns are ungrammatical without DOM, regardless of person specification. Moreover, clitic doubling is obligatory too in these contexts, as shown in 9(a). Proper names and kinship nouns with possessors are another category that requires the obligatory presence of the differential marker, and for many speakers, also clitic doubling; some examples are in (9)(b) and (c). DPs that contain highly referential nominals or honorifics, especially if accompanied by demonstratives, are equally ungrammatical without the differential marker (and clitic doubling); an example is in 9(d). Another important category groups together the animate direct objects of various pain and psych predicates, such as hurt, interest, etc., as in (9)(e) and (f).8 The differential objects of pain predicates also need obligatory clitic doubling.

(9)	a.	*(M)-au			ajutat	*(pe) mine	şi	*(le)-au
		cl.acc.1sg-have.3pl			helped	dom me.acc	and	cl.acc.3f.pl-have.3pl
		ajutat	şi		*(pe)	ele.
		helped	and		dom	they.f
		‘They helped me and they helped them too.’
	b.	(O)			apreciez	foarte	mult	*(pe)	Adriana.
		cl.acc.3f.sg			appreciate	very	much	cl.acc.3f.sg	Adriana
		‘I appreciate Adriana very much.’
	c.	(O)			ador	*(pe)	mama/sora/
		cl.acc.3f.sg			adore	dom	mother.def.f.sg/sister.def.f.sg/
		bunica				mea.
		grandmother.def.f.sg				my.f.sg
		‘I adore my mother/sister/grandmother.’
	d.	Preşedintele				(ȋl)	va	invita	*(pe)
		president.def.m.sg				cl.acc.3m.sg	fut.3sg	invite.inf	dom
		domnul				acela		la	recepţie.
		gentleman.def.m.sg				that.def.m.sg.aug9		at	reception
		‘The president will invite that gentleman to the reception.’
	e.	*(O)			doare	mâna	*(pe)	fată.
		cl.acc.3f.sg			hurt.3sg	hand.def.f.sg	dom	girl
		‘The girl’s hand hurts.’ (Lit. ‘The hand hurts the girl.’)
	f.	Aceste		rezultate	(ȋi)	interesează		pe	politiceni.
		this.n.pl		result.n.pl	cl.acc.3m.pl	interest.3		dom	politician.pl
		‘These results interest politicians.’						(Romanian)

Let us turn now to the quantifiers. On the one hand, there are quantificational elements with a humanness/animacy restriction, for example wh-words, such as cine ‘who’, illustrated in (10), the negative [+human] nimeni ‘nobody’ in (10)(b), or cineva (‘somebody’) with its variants, as in (10)(c) or (5)(a). These quantifiers, even if requiring obligatory differential marking, are not possible with clitic doubling.

(10)	a.	*(Pe)	cine	(*l-)ai		auzit?
		dom	who	cl.acc.3m.sg-have.2sg		heard
		‘Who have you heard?’
	b.	Nu	(*l-)au	salutat	pe	nimeni.
		neg	cl.acc.3m.sg-have.3pl	greeted	dom	nobody
		‘They haven’t greeted anybody.’
	c.	Trebuie să	(*ȋl)	angajăm	pe	altcineva.
		must	sbjv cl.acc.3m.sg	hire.1pl	dom	other somebody
		‘We must hire somebody else.’				(Romanian)

The other subclass encompasses the quantifiers that require obligatory DOM, irrespective of animacy. The D-linked element care (‘which’) fits here, together with various nominal ellipsis contexts headed by demonstratives, possessors, the universal quantifier, etc. Some relevant examples are in (11)(a)–(e). The relative pronoun, when tracking direct objects, also falls into this group; it is considered obligatory in descriptive grammars, and dropping the differential marker is strongly frowned upon. As opposed to the quantifiers in (10), DOM categories that are insensitive to animacy normally need clitic doubling or are definitely better with clitic doubling for most speakers.

(11)	a.	*(Pe)	care		(bărbat/autobuz)	*(l)-ai		văzut?
		dom	which		man/bus	cl.acc.3m/n.sg-have.2sg		seen
		‘Which man/bus did you see?’
	b.	(L)-au			examinat	pe	acela.
		cl.acc.3m.sg-have.3pl			examined	dom	that.m/n.sg.aug
		‘They examined that one.’				[animate or inanimate]
	c.	(Le)			acceptăm	pe	toate.
		cl.acc.3f/n.pl			accept.1pl	dom	all.f/n.pl
		‘We accept them all.’				[animate or inanimate]
	d.	(L-)au			furat	(pe)	al meu.
		cl.acc.m/n.sg-have.3pl			stolen	dom	lk.def.m/n.sg
		‘They have stolen mine.’				[animate or inanimate]
	e.	(L)-aş			prefera	(pe)	cel10	ȋnalt.
		cl.acc.m/n.sg-cond.1sg			prefer.inf	dom	cel.m/n.sg	tall.m/n.sg
		‘I’d prefer the tall one.’					[animate or inanimate]
	f.	Fata	*(pe)	care	ai	ajutat-*(o).
		girl.def.f.sg	dom	which	have.2sg	helped-cl.acc.3f.sg
		‘the girl that/whom you helped.’					(Romanian)

When it comes to DPs with overt lexical material (as opposed to elliptical DPs), the prepositional marker is, if not obligatory, at least strongly preferred in certain types of comparative constructions (generally equatives) or when numerals and other categories need to be individuated under citation. More recently, the use of the differential marker has been extended to sports teams in object position. Some examples are in (12).

(12)	a.	Îşi		preţuieşte		prietenul		ca *(pe)	un	dar.
		cl.dat.poss.3sg		value.3sg		friend.def.m.sg		as dom	a.n.sg	gift
		‘She/he values his/her friend as a (she/he values a gift).’
	b.	O	găină ȋngrijeşte			trei	pisoi	abandonaţi
		a.f.sg	hen	care for.3sg		three	kitten.m.pl	abandoned.m.pl	ca *(pe)	proprii	pui.
		as	dom	own.m.pl		chick.m.pl
		‘A hen takes care of three abandoned kittens as of her own chicks.’11
	b.	L-ai				uitat		*(pe)	trei/a.
		cl.acc.3m.sg-have.2sg				forgotten		dom	three/a
		‘You forgot the three/the a.’ (for example, in a text)
	c.	Au	reuşit	să		o		bată	*(pe)	Lazio Roma.
		have.3pl	succeeded	sbjv		cl.acc.3sg.f		beat.sbjv3	dom	Lazio Roma
		‘They managed to beat Lazio.’								(Romanian)

3.2. Optional Prepositional DOM

There are also various contexts in which differential marking has been traditionally described as optional. Animate definites are found in this class; in Romanian, both the sentence in (13)(a) containing an unmarked definite, and the sentence in (13)(b) with a differentially marked object interpreted as a definite, are grammatical. It is moreover not clear whether the two sentences differ in terms of specificity or whether there are (deep) interpretive distinctions between them.

(13)	a.	Am	văzut		fetele.
		have.1	seen		girl.f.pl.def.f.pl
		‘I saw the girls.’
	b.	(Le)-am	văzut	pe	fete(*le).
		cl.acc.f.pl-have.1	seen	dom	girl.f.pl
		‘I saw the girls.’				(Romanian)

Note that in modern Romanian, there is a co-occurrence restriction between the differential marker and the overt definite suffix on unmodified objects (see the extensive bibliography in Irimia 2023a or Hill and Mardale 2021). As a result of this restriction, the overt definite suffix is not possible in (13)(b); however, the object must be interpreted as a definite and cannot obtain the reading of a bare nominal. In fact, as can be seen in (19)(a), bare nominals, which in Romanian are restricted to existential interpretations, are not grammatical under differential marking.

Another context of optionality comes from the quantifier domain, and it appears to signal the more precise distinction between weak and strong quantifiers. When the differential marker is present, a specific interpretation is obtained; in turn, the unmarked quantified object gets an existential reading. This is seen in the contrast in (14). Other quantifiers in this class are niciun/niciuna ‘no.m/f.sg’, vreun/vreuna (‘any.m/f.sg’, polarity sensitive)12, puţini/puţine (‘few.m/f.pl’).

(14)	a.	Cunosc	mulţi	scriitori.
		know.1sg	many.m.pl	writer.m.pl
		‘I know many writers.’
	b.	Îi	cunosc	pe	mulţi	scriitori.
		cl.acc.3m.pl	many.m.pl	dom	many.m.pl	writer.m.pl
		‘I know many specific writers.’				(Romanian)

The alternation seen with the numerals is related to partitivity. In 0, when the differential marker is present, the two books are interpreted as specific, and the set is presupposed to be known. The unmarked numeral is interpreted as an existential.

(15)	Nu	(le)-am	citit	decât	(pe)	două	dintre	aceste	lucrări.
	neg	cl.acc.3f.pl-have.1	read	only	dom	two	from	this.f.pl	work.f.pl
	‘I have read only two of these works.’								(Romanian)

The contrast in specificity is also salient with indefinites. As such, an interpretive difference is clear between (16)(a) and (16)(b); the latter, which contains a differentially marked object, can refer to a specific woman.

(16)	a.	Ion	iubeşte	o	femeie.
		Ion	love.3sg	a.f.sg	woman
		‘Ion loves a woman.’
	b.	Ion o	iubeşte	pe	o	femeie	anume
		Ion cl.acc.3f.sg	love.3sg	dom	a.f.sg	woman	certain
		‘Ion loves a certain woman.’				(Romanian)

However, despite this contrast, there are contexts in which a differentially marked indefinite can be associated to a non-specific reading. This is, in fact, not surprising, given the numerous exceptions seen with marked objects in Romanian and cross-linguistically. A relevant example is given in (17).

(17)	Poţi	să	îl	rogi	pe	un	om	oarecare
	can.2sg	sbjv	cl.acc.3m.sg	ask.2sg	dom	a.m.sg	man	no-matter-who
	de pe stradă.
	of on street
	‘You can ask any random man/person on the street.’							(Romanian)

This indicates not only that a better understanding of the composition of specificity is necessary but also that differential marking is regulated by more abstract constraints, going beyond specificity, referentiality, and animacy. Also, it has been noticed in a variety of languages that DOM cannot be unified under purely semantic features (see especially López 2012). Romanian DOM is, thus, no exception.

3.3. Ungrammatical Prepositional DOM

Turning to the contexts in which differential marking results in ungrammaticality, these comprise at least four types. First, there are the inanimate objects that have overt lexical material, as in (7)(b). Then, there are the non-elliptical quantifiers that are restricted to inanimates, such as nimic (‘nothing’) or ceva (‘something’) in (18); these are to be contrasted with nimeni (‘nobody’) or (alt)cineva (‘somebody else’), shown above in (10).

(18)	a.	Nu	am	văzut	(*pe) nimic
		neg	have.1	seen	dom nothing
		‘I have seen nothing.’
	b.	Am	văzut	(*pe) ceva/altceva
		have.1	seen	dom something/other something
		‘I saw something/something else.’				(Romanian)

Thirdly, bare nominals are excluded from differential marking, regardless of animacy. As such, the existential predicate have in 19(a) that prefers bare nouns is not grammatical with marked objects. If differential marking is added to this context, the existential interpretation is removed, and what is entailed is a momentaneous eventuality of possessing, confined to a certain temporal duration. Moreover, the presupposition of a set of girls known in the discourse is introduced, as in (19)(b).

(19)	a.	Maria are	(*pe)	fete,	iar	Ion (*pe)	băieţi.
		Maria have.3sg	dom	girl.f.pl	and	Ion dom	boy.m.pl
		‘Maria has girls and Ion boys.’
	b.	Maria le		are	pe	fete.
		Maria cl.acc.3f.pl		have.3sg	dom	girl.f.pl
		‘Maria has the specific girls.’ (with her, at her place)					(Romanian)

Fourthly, certain types of (cognitive and stative) predicates with inanimate subjects are not grammatical with differential marking. We give here two examples modeled after Torrego (1998) and Cornilescu (2000).

(20)	a.	Opera	(*ȋi)	cunoaşte	(*pe)	mulţi	fani.
		opera.f.sg	cl.acc.3m.pl	know.3sg	dom	many.m.pl	fan.m.pl
		‘The opera knows many fans.’
	b.	Situaţia	dificilă		(*ȋl)	cerea	(*pe)
		situation.def.f.sg	difficult.f.sg		cl.acc.3m.pl	demand.impf.3sg	dom
		un	lider	foarte	puternic.
		a.m.sg	leader	very	strong.m.sg
		‘The difficult situation demanded a very strong leader.’					(Romanian)

Lastly, the differential marker is ungrammatical in some types of non-finite predicates; the so-called supine, constructed from a nominalization and preceded by the prepositional marker de, is a case at hand. For many speakers, the differential marker (and thus clitic doubling) are not easily possible in examples such as (21)(a) or (21)(b).

(21)	a.	(*Îi)	am	de	spălat		(*pe) copii.
		cl.acc.3m.pl	have.1sg	sup	wash.nomz	dom	child.m.pl
		‘I have to wash the children.’
	b.	(*Îi)	am	de	vizitat	(*pe)	părinţi.
		cl.acc.3m.pl	have.1sg	sup	visit.nomz	dom	parent.m.pl
		‘I have to visit the parents.’					(Romanian)

3.4. Romanian DOM: Unifying Traits

As is clear from these examples, using a description of the Romanian differential marker in terms of scales is not the right direction to take. Violations of both the animacy and the referentiality scales are common; in certain contexts, special marking applies regardless of animacy (the nominal ellipsis contexts in (11)), while in others, specificity does not play a role (for example, the animate quantifiers in (10)). This raises the question of how differential marking can be unified; an explanation according to which marked objects are associated with a higher, overt position, as seen in Turkish (and in many other languages of this type, Baker 2015), does not seem to be the answer either, as Romanian differentially marked objects do not raise overtly and, in normal conditions, cannot precede V (see also Hill and Mardale 2021 for other remarks against raising when it comes to Romanian DOM).

Another traditional analysis for differential object marking in Romanian is the one in terms of Kayne’s Generalization (Jaeggli 1982; Dobrovie-Sorin 1994), which links the prepositional marker to the presence of the clitic double.13 In these accounts, the differential marker acts as a last resort Case-assigning mechanism to avoid a violation of the Case Filter (Chomsky 1981)14—as the clitic double ‘absorbs’ Case from V, the lexical nominal would be left caseless. Given that in Romanian there are numerous instances in which clitic doubling is, in fact, ungrammatical with various types of differentially marked objects (for example, differentially marked quantifiers with an animacy restriction as in (10), this analysis does not give the right results.

We can also investigate the hypothesis that links the prepositional differential marker to an anti-incorporation mechanism in the grammar, as assumed in numerous works on DOM (see especially López 2012). It has been conclusively demonstrated for a wide range of language families (e.g., Öztürk 2005; Baker and Vinokurova 2010; Lyutikova and Pereltsvaig 2015; Levy-Forsythe and Kagan 2018; Jenkins 2021 for Altaic; Li 2006; Huang 2018 for Chinese; Bhatt 2005 for Hindi-Urdu; López 2012 or Baker 2015 for a general overview) that another important trait is salient in the analysis of DOM: more specifically, the divide between objects that can, at least semantically, undergo complex predicate formation with the matrix predicate and objects that cannot do so.

The objects that form a complex with the main predicate are predicates of type <e,t> and as a result cannot saturate the predicate with which they merge. They are rather interpreted as modifiers and are subject to the operation Restrict (Diesing 1992; Chung and Ladusaw 2004; a.o.) or Predicate Modification (Heim and Kratzer 1998), as schematically illustrated in (22). The result is semantic pseudo-incorporation.

(22)

The objects undergoing pseudo-incorporation can stay bare (for example, even in languages that otherwise have overt morphology for (in)definiteness), might not carry case marking (if the language does not allow the licensing of c/Case on predicates), generally tend to be NPs, are not dependent on the discourse setting, and can be interpreted in situ (23)(a). Cross-linguistically, such objects also tend to lack differential marking (Chung and Ladusaw 2004; Levin 2015).

(23)

On the other hand, there are the direct objects with a more complex internal structure: for example, such objects might contain the D layer or structural Case features in the K layer, as in (23)(b). These categories cannot be correctly licensed and interpreted via the operation Restrict and need special licensing mechanisms. This class contains (among other elements) the differentially marked objects, the reflexes of which can be, on the surface, a higher position than the incorporating objects (as seen in the contrast in (1) from Turkic), the presence of local licensers (e.g., adpositional markers repurposed for DOM, as in Romance), obligatoriness of agreement, clitic doubling (as in non-Romance Balkan languages), or other types of special marking.

For example, in Albanian and Greek, differential object marking in the form of clitic doubling is obligatory in anti-incorporation contexts, such as clause union. This is so because of configurational restrictions—the shared argument is generated either as a subject that cannot incorporate into its predicate (as in (24)(a)) or, if it is a complement, there is no position available for it to compose with the embedded predicate because the latter must also compose with the main predicate, as seen in (24)(b)). (Semantic) incorporation into the main predicate is not possible either because the shared argument is not the complement of the main predicate.

(24)	Clause union contexts and lack of incorporation (see López 2012; Irimia 2020a)

Below, we illustrate two configurations from Albanian and Greek; in these two languages, clitic doubling appears with objects in a variety of clause union contexts (see Kallulli 2000 for extensive exemplification), among which are embedded small clauses (as in (25) and (26)). It can be easily observed that specificity or definiteness (taken as the flagging trait for clitic doubling in Greek in Anagnostopoulou’s work) can be easily overridden in such environments. Clitic doubling, thus, flags the presence of an anti-incorporation mechanism.

(25)	Consider + SC–Albanian
	Jan-i	nuk	e	konsideron	një	vajzë	të	tillë/Mer-in
	Jan-def	neg	cl.acc.3sg	consider	a	girl		such/Mary-def.acc
	inteligjente.
	intelligent
	‘John does not consider any such girl/Mary intelligent.’
	(Albanian, Kallulli 2000, ex. 8a, p. 215)

(26)	Consider + SC–Greek
	O	Yannis	dhen	tin	theori	kamja	tetia	kopela
	def.m.sg	John	neg	cl.acc.3f.sg	consider	no	such	girl
	/tin			Maria		eksipini.
	def.acc.f.sg			Maria		intelligent
	‘John does not consider any such girl/Mary intelligent.’
	(Greek, Kallulli 2000, ex. 8b, p. 215)

However, even though anti-incorporation is a necessary ingredient for Romanian DOM, it is not sufficient. This is demonstrated by the examples in (27), which show that clause union contexts are possible without DOM. In fact, inanimates must be used without DOM, as in (27)(d); what is not possible in these configurations is the presence of bare nominals, that is nominals without overt definiteness or indefiniteness marking. This restriction holds for both ECM small clauses, as in (27)(c), or embedded subjunctives as in (27)(d). This indicates that,n Romanian, only bare nominals are subject to semantic incorporation. The addition of functional material related to (in)definiteness ensures anti-incorporation; one way to explain this is to assume that the D head contains a Case feature which can only be licensed by functional material at the clausal level and not via complex predicate formation.

(27)	a.	Consideră	studenţii			foarte		inteligenţi.
		consider3	student.m.pl.def.m.pl			very		intelligent.m.pl
		‘They consider the students very intelligent.’
	b.	Îi	consideră		pe	studenţi		foarte	inteligenţi.
		cl.acc.3m.pl	consider.3		dom	student.m.pl		very	intelligent.m.pl
		‘They consider the students very intelligent.’
	c.	*Consideră	studenţi		foarte	Inteligenţi.
		consider.3	student.m.pl		very	intelligent.m.pl
		Intended: ‘They consider the students very intelligent.’
	d.	Consideră	(*pe)	produse*(le)			foarte	scumpe	şi	nu
		consider.3	dom	product.n.pl.def.n.pl			very	expensive.m.pl	and	neg
		le		vor		cumpăra.
		cl.acc.3n.pl		want=fut.3.pl		buy.inf
		‘They consider the products very expensive and won’t buy them.’
	e.	Pune	?studenţi/studenţii					să	îi
		put.3sg	student.m.pl/student.m.pl.def.m.pl					sbjv	cl.acc.3m/f.sg
		scrie		lucrările.
		write.3sg		paper.f.pl.def.f.pl
		‘He makes the students write his papers.’15							(Romanian)

Irimia (2020a) showed that Romanian marked objects can instead be unified structurally. Crucially, the differential marker applies to nominal classes that have a complex internal structure, encompassing two types of features: (i) uninterpretable Case ([uC]), merged in D, and (ii) additional features beyond [uC], for example discourse-related ([ð]) features merged in a functional projection about the D head, for example the K head. As in Romanian the DP acts as a phase (a complete domain for interpretation), the differential marker signals the presence of any additional features beyond the phase boundary. In this line of analysis, a better understanding of the nature of differential marking breaks down to a detailed investigation of various structural realizations in the extended functional structure of nominals and the interpretive correlates they carry.

(28)

Another salient property of differentially marked objects is that they cannot easily bind into the external argument. This indicates that they are licensed in a position below VoiceP, the structural domain where external arguments are introduced. Note that this, by itself, does not imply that marked objects are not signaled by raising. They might undergo raising, but covertly, and to a position lower than vP (for example, to a position between VP and v; see López (2012), while also keeping in mind problems above with respect to DOM raising in Romanian). Binding into the external argument is made possible when the differentially marked objects are accompanied by clitic doubling. We provide two examples in (29) and (30). Only in (29)(b) and (30)(b) can the direct object be coreferential with the subject; this interpretation is absent in the examples in (29)(a) and (30)(a).

(29)	a.	Muzica	lor*i	plictiseşte	pe	mulţi i.
		music.def.f.sg	their	annoy.3sg	dom	many.m.pl
		‘Their music annoys many.’
	b.	Muzica	lor	îii		plictiseşte pe	mulţii.
		music.def.f.sg	their	cl.acc.3m.pl		annoy.3sg dom	many.m.pl
		‘Their (own) music annoys many.’
		(Romanian, Cornilescu 2020, ex., 24, 25, p. 164)

(30)	a.	Părinţii	lor*i	ajută	pe	toţi i	copiii.
		parent.def.m.pl	their	help.3pl	dom	all.m.pl	child.m.pl.def.m.pl
		‘Their parents help all the children.’
	b.	Părinţii	lor	ȋii	ajută	pe	toţi i
		parent.def.m.pl	their	cl.acc.3m.pl	help.3pl	dom	all.m.pl
		copiii.
		child.m.pl.def.m.pl
		‘Their (own) parents help all the children.’					(Romanian)

These contrasts indicate that differentially marked objects are licensed below VoiceP, the domain where the subject is introduced. Following López (2012), we assume a position between VP and VoiceP, as represented in (31). The clitic double has access to licensing above VoiceP, thus opening up the possibility of the object binding the pronominal inside the constituent containing the subject.

(31)

A similar split in binding possibilities is observed in the non-Romance Balkan languages, for example Albanian, which we illustrate here. The sentence in (32)(a) contains a direct object that is not clitic doubled; binding into the external argument is not possible. On the other hand, if the direct object is clitic doubled, it can take scope over the external argument, and thus the sentence in (32)(b) can also get an interpretation in which the pronoun contained in the subject can co-vary with the direct object. This indicates that in Balkan languages, objects that are not clitic doubled cannot raise (covertly) to a position above the external argument. In Section 5 and Section 6, we will see that Ragusa is different in this respect, as unmarked objects do not need clitic doubling in order to bind into the external argument.

(32)	Cliticless direct objects—no binding into the external argument
	a.	Hallet		e	tyre j	dëshpërojnë	shumë *j	njerëz.
		problem.nom.def.m.pl		agr	their	despair.3pl	many	people
		‘Their problems despair many people.’						(Albanian)
	b.	Hallet		e	tyre j	i	dëshpërojnë
		problem.nom.def.m.pl		agr	their	cl.acc.3m.pl	despair.3pl
		shumëj	njerëz.
		many	people
		‘Their own problems despair many people.’
		‘Their problems despair many people.’				(Albanian, Dalina Kallulli, p.c.)

3.5. Romanian DOM and Clitic Doubling

The fact that the clitic double can facilitate binding into the external argument is important when it comes to its unifying traits. Similarly to what we have seen for prepositional DOM, an attempt to link clitic doubled DOM to purely semantic features does not lead to correct results. For example, postulating that clitic doubled DOM entails specificity was contradicted by the existence of non-specific contexts such as those in (33). These direct objects instead carry interpretations related to various types of genericity. Despite this, they were set aside from the partitive generics discussed in (15), when it come to interpretation; in examples similar to (15), specificity is necessary in order to ensure the presence of the differential marker. This strengthens an observation already made above: a more in-depth understanding is needed of the composition of the various internal configurations of nominal categories and, moreover, how they map to various positions in the clausal spine. What is relevant as a starting point in the analysis of examples such as those in (33) is a general internal DP architecture as in (28), and moreover, the observation that certain types of generics are not correctly licensed inside VoiceP (and thus, they need the presence of the clitic double), regardless of superficial features such as specificity. Additionally, another context with clitic doubled DOM linked to a non-specific interpretation is in (17).

(33)	a.	De	parcă	nu	ȋi	cunosc	eu	pe	politicieni
		of	if	neg	cl.acc.3m.pl	know.1sg	1sg,nom	dom	politician.m.pl
		‘As if I don’t know the politicians.’ (‘As if I do not know what the politicians are like.’)
	b.	Îi		ştiu	eu	pe	hoţii	ăştia
		cl.acc.3m.pl		know.1sg	I	dom	thief.m.pl	this.m.pl
		‘I know these crooks.’ (‘I know what crooks thieves are like.’)
	c.	Ce	o		atrage	pe	o	femeie	la un	bărbat?
		what	cl.acc.3f.sg		attract.1sg	dom	a.f.sg	woman	at a.m.sg	man
		‘What attracts a woman to a man?’						(Romanian)

An important distinction Romanian clitic doubling exhibits as compared to the non-Romance Balkan languages is its insensitivity to information structure; in Romanian, clitic doubling on DOM applies uniformly regardless of topic or focus structures and regardless of the absence or the presence of a [+given] feature. The context in (34) is an out-of-the-blue one and the sentence in (35) contains a contrastively focused direct object; as we can see, both the prepositional differential marker and clitic doubling are present (the differential marker is obligatory for all speakers, while clitic doubling is preferred, according to what descriptive grammars indicate).

(34)	a.	Ce	s-a		ȋntâmplat?
		what	se-have.3sg		happened
		‘What happened?’
	b.	Un	hoţ	l-a		atacat	pe	Ion.
		a.m.sg	thief	cl.acc.3m.sg-have.3sg		attacked	dom	Ion
		‘A thief attacked Ion.’							(Romanian)

(35)	L-am	chemat	PE	ION, nu		PE	Marius.
	cl.acc.3m.sg-have.1	called	dom	Ion	neg	dom	Marius
	‘I have called Ion, not Marius.’						(Romanian)

Another difference with respect to non-Romance Balkan languages is that neither the prepositional differential marker nor clitic doubling are possible with clausal material in Romanian, regardless of factivity. The Romanian sentence in (36) is ungrammatical, with or without clitic doubling on DOM, firstly because the prepositional marker pe cannot introduce a clause.

(36)	*L-am	crezut	pe	că	Ion	a	plecat.
	cl.acc.3m/n.sg-have1	believed	dom	that	Ion	have.3sg	left
	‘I believed the fact that Ion left.’					(Romanian)

In some of the non-Romance languages in the Balkans, for example Albanian or Greek, the coreferent of the clitic can also be a full clause, and not only a DP (Tomić 1996; Kallulli 2016). As Kallulli (2016) show, the presence of the clitic double enforces factivity, even with non-factive predicates. Two examples with predicates in the believe class are illustrated below for Albanian; similar contexts have been discussed for other non-Romance Balkan languages such as Greek.

(37)	a.	Besova	se	Beni	shkoi	(por në fact ai nuk shkoi).
		belive.1pst	that	Beni	left	(but in fact he not left)
		‘I believed that Beni left (but in fact he didn’t).’
	b.	E	besova	se	Beni	shkoi	(*por në fact ai nuk shkoi).
		cl.acc.3sg	believe.1pst	that	Beni	left	(but in fact he not left)
		‘I believed the fact that Ben left (*but in fact he didn’t).’
		(Albanian, Kallulli 2016, p. 212)

Factive sentences can be easily assumed to contain an empty D head; when the latter has features that cannot compose with V directly (for example giveness, etc.), anti-incorporation must apply and the D head will be licensed by the clitic above vP. For constituents with a sentential nature, one of the interpretive correlates of giveness is factivity. Kallulli (2016) correctly pointed out that the presence of an empty D head in the makeup of clauses (for example, the pleonastic it in English, the es pronominal marker in German) does correlate with factivity.

However, the restrictions on differential object marking block the clitic doubling of clauses in Romanian. First, given that the clitic double is only possible with differentially marked objects, it is not sensitive just to the presence of a D head (as we saw in (28) where a more complex structure of the co-occurring nominal is needed). As clauses do not have a KP structure, the clitic double will be blocked on them. Second, sensitivity to animacy (for those contexts in which the differential marker is possible only with animates) will similarly filter out clausal projections, as the latter cannot (normally) be specified as animate. And third, full clauses do not have the same internal structure as nominal ellipsis contexts and thus cannot be differentially marked; this, in turn, will prohibit their doubling by a clitic.

As we have already said, another unifying trait of Romanian DOM contexts is that clitic doubling is not possible with objects that do not have the differential marker pronounced overtly. Thus, observe the contrast between (38)(a) and (38)(b):

(38)	a.	Am	văzut-o	pe	fată.
		have.1	seen-cl.acc.3f.sg	dom	girl
		‘I saw the girl.’
	b.	Am	văzut(-*o)	fata.
		have.1	seen-cl.acc.3f.sg	girl.def.f.sg
		Intended: ‘I saw the girl.’			(Romanian)

And lastly, clitic doubling in Romanian is not restricted to objects with a [+topic] feature; as we have seen in the examples in (34) and (35), differential marking and thus clitic doubling are possible on foci or objects that are novel in the discourse. In this respect, Romanian is clearly distinguished from non-Romance Balkan languages, in which clitic doubling has been shown to exclude material signaled as [+focus] or objects that are not given (see Kallulli (2016), who discusses this restriction for Albanian and Greek or the various contributions in Kallulli and Tasmowski (2008a), who mention the same facts for other non-Romance Balkan languages).16

3.6. Clitic Doubling vs. Clitic Resumption

The restriction of clitic doubling to differentially marked objects in Romanian is relevant from yet another respect: it sets aside clitic doubling from clitic resumption. As we mentioned in Section 2.2, the latter flags overtly dislocated nominals, with a heavy prosodic break. Crucially, Romanian clitic resumption is not dependent on animacy and can/must apply regardless of whether the dislocated object is differentially marked or not. In (39)(a), the resumptive clitic is obligatory, irrespective of animacy; what counts instead is the fact that the dislocated object is a definite direct object. In (39)(b), the same inanimate direct object, but this time in situ, is ungrammatical with clitic doubling. Non-dislocated objects are not possible in situ without differential marking, which in the case of nominals with lexical material would require the presence of animacy. As the nominal is inanimate, the addition of the differential marker (to ensure the presence of clitic doubling) results in ungrammaticality. Other important contexts illustrating the differences between clitic doubling and clitic resumption are addressed in Section 4.1.

(39)	a.	Cartea		nouă,	nu	am		citit-*(o).
		book.def.f.sg		new.f.sg	neg	have		read-cl.acc.3f.sg
		‘The new book, I haven’t read it.’
	b.	Nu	am	citit(*-o)		cartea			nouă.
		neg	have	read-cl.acc.3f.sg		book.def.f.sg			new.f.sg
		Intended: ‘I haven’t read the new book.’
	c.	Nu	am	citit(*-o)		(*pe)	cartea			nouă.
		neg	have	read-cl.acc.3f.sg		dom	book.def.f.sg			new.f.sg
		Intended: ‘I haven’t read the new book.’								(Romanian)

3.7. South Danubian Romance

Before concluding this section, it is necessary to say a few words about the South Danubian Balkan area which contains other Romance languages, namely Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian (Capidan 1932; Papatsafa 1997; Friedman 2008; Manzini and Savoia 2018; Hill and Mardale 2021; a.o.), with their varieties. Some of these varieties show differential object marking, traditionally identified as clitic doubling; depending on the more precise variety, the patterns resemble either Macedonian or Greek. In the two Aromanian examples in (40) and in the sentence (41) from Megleno-Romanian, the direct object shows clitic doubling in the absence of a prepositional marker. This type of realization is not possible in Romanian, as seen in the corresponding structures in (42).

(40)	a.	Auš-lu nu	vrea	s-l’	u-aspargă	k’efe-(a)
		old-def neg wanted.3sg		sbjv-cl.dat.3sg	cl.acc.3sg-spoil	pleasure-def
		a	fičor-lui.
		at	boy-dat.def.m.sg
		‘The old man didn’t want to spoil the child’s pleasure.’
		(Aromanian Kruševo, Friedman 2008, e.g., 42a, p. 55)
	b.	U	vădzuj	kas-a	al	aist	om.
		cl.acc.3sg	saw.1sg	house-def.f.sg	gen/dat-def.m.sg	this.m.sg	man
		‘I saw this man’s house.’
		(Aromanian Ohrid, Friedman 2008, e.g., 43a, p. 55)

(41)	Lă	loa	bucium-ul, lă		turi	shi	zisi.
	cl.acc.3sg	take.3sg	log-def.sg	cl.acc.3sg	threw.3sg	and	said.3sg
	‘He took the log, threw it (away) and said.’
	(Megleno-Romanian, Papatsafa 1997, p. 15)

(42)	a.	Am	văzut(*-o)	casa	acestui	om.
		have.1sg	seen-cl.acc.f.3sg	house.def.f.sg	this.m.sg.gen.m.sg	man
		Intended: ‘I saw this man’s house.’
	b.	(*L-)a		luat	buşteanul.
		cl.acc.m.3sg-have.3sg		taken	log-def.sg
		Intended: ‘He took the log.’			(Romanian)

Makarova and Winistörfer (2020), in turn, discuss patterns of prepositional differential object marking characterizing South Danubian Romance in the districts of Struga, Resen, and Bitola (villages of Dolna Belica, Gorna Belica, Malovishte) in Macedonia. While the marking is morphologically similar to Romanian in that the pe preposition is used, differences arise with respect to at least two traits, as illustrated by Makarova and Winistörfer (2020) examples in (43): (i) the clitic doubling strategy is also possible on unmarked objects and (ii) prepositional DOM is possible on in situ lexical inanimates.

(43)	a.	u	mutresc	pi	fata.
		cl.acc.3sg	see.pres.1sg	dom	girl.def.f.sg
		I see the girl (one of many).’
		(Aromanian, Gorna Belica, RaSt, Makarova and Winistörfer 2020, p. 1)
	b.	u	mutresc	fata.
		cl.acc.3sg	see.pres.1sg	girl.def.f.sg
		‘I see this girl.’
		(Aromanian, Gorna Belica, RaSt, Makarova and Winistörfer 2020, p. 1)
	c.	u	ved	pi	lemnu.
		cl.acc.3sg	see.pres.1sg	dom	tree.def.m.sg
		‘I see the tree.’
		(Aromanian, Dolna Belica, WiCa, Makarova and Winistörfer 2020, p. 2)
	d.	*Îl	văd	pe	copacul.
		cl.acc.m.3sg	see.1sg	dom	tree.def.m.sg
		Intended: ‘I see the tree.’			(Romanian)
	e.	Văd	copacul.
		see.1sg	tree.def.m.sg
		‘I see the tree.’			(Romanian)

Table 2. DOM strategies: Cl-doubling (Greek, Albanian, Macedonian) vs. prep-DOM (Romanian).

Correlate	Cl-Doubling (Alb, Bulg, Maced, Bulg)	Prep-DOM (Rom)	Prep-DOM + Cl-Double (Rom)
sensitivity to animacy	–	+	+
[+given]	Albanian, Bulgarian	–	–
creates factivity (on clauses)	Albanian, Greek	–	–
anti-incorporation	+ (all)	+ (but not sufficient)	+ (but not sufficient)
prepositional DOM	–	+	+ (with clitic doubling)
clitic doubling	+	–	+ (only with DOM)
blocking bare nouns	+ (all)	+	+
DOM above EA	+ (clitic doubling)	–	+
excludes [focus]	Albanian, Greek	–	–
conjunctive features	–	+	+

summarizes the results of this section with respect to the most important correlates of Romanian DOM. Additionally, a summary of salient traits of clitic doubling in the non-Romance Balkan domain discussed in the literature (according to the references cited above and also Assenova 1980; Dimitrova-Vulchanova and Hellan 1999a, 1999b; Leafgren 1997; Schick 2000; Schick and Beukema 2001; Jaeger and Gerassimova 2002; Tisheva and Dzonova 2002; Guentchéva 2008; Krapova and Cinque 2008; Kochovska 2011; Harizanov 2014; among many others), also underlines their differences from Romanian DOM.

4. Differential Object Marking Ragusa: A Comparison with Romanian

In all the Romance dialects of (Southern) Italy that display instances of DOM, the element that introduces differentially marked objects is a, homophonous with the dative/locative preposition a (Ledgeway 2016, p. 268). Aside from this, the Romance dialects of Italy display a wide array of internal variation concerning the properties of differentially marked objects (Ledgeway 2023). Therefore, no individual dialect can be taken as exhaustively encompassing the whole internal diversity observed in this region: we take the dialect of Ragusa as a starting point. In the future, extending the empirical domain to additional dialects is likely to add further evidence relevant for comparison.

Similarly to Romanian, Ragusa presents a DOM system built on conjunctive features. The two major traits necessary for differential marking are the overt realization of the D area (for example the D head) and the [+human] feature of the object (Guardiano 2023).

As shown in (44), objects introduced by an article ((44)(a) and (44)(b)) or by an item that has raised to the D area (such as a demonstrative in (44)(c), a numeral in (44)(d), a proper name, or a kinship noun with a possessor in (44)(e)) are obligatorily a-marked if the referent is [+human] (Guardiano 1999, 2000; 2023, pp. 196–201).

(44)	a.	Vitti	*(a)	nu	/	o		piccjuòttu.
		see.1sg.pst	dom	a.m.sg		dom+def.m.sg		young.person.m.sg
		‘I saw a/the boy.’
	b.	Vitti	e	/		*i	surdati.
		see.1sg.pst	dom+def.pl			def.pl	soldier.pl
		‘I saw the soldiers.’
	c.	Ciamàu	*(a)			ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	picciuòttu.
		call.3sg.pst	dom			dem.m.sg	young.person.m.sg
		‘(S)he called that/this guy.’
	d.	Vitti	*(a)			ṭṭṛi	surdati.
		see.1sg.pst	dom			three	soldier.pl
		‘I saw three soldiers.’
	e.	U	prufissuri			ciamàu	*(a)	Ggiovanni	/ mmo frati
		def.m.sg	professor			call.3sg.pst	dom	Giovanni	/ my brother
		‘The teacher called Giovanni/my brother.’							(Ragusa)

All types of pronominals (e.g., personal pronouns, demonstratives, indefinite, and negative quantifiers used pronominally) with [+human] referents are systematically a-marked, as shown in the examples in (45). This is the exact picture as in Romanian.

(45)	a.	U	prufissuri	ciamàu	*(a)	mmìa/ tìa / niàuṭṛi / viàuṭṛi /
		def.m.sg	professor	call.3sg.pst	dom	1sg / 2sg / 1pl / 2pl /
		iḍu / iḍa / iḍi.
		3sg.m / 3sg.f / 3pl
		‘The teacher called me/you/us/you/him/her/them.’
	b.	U	prufissuri	ciamàu	*(a)	cchiḍu/cchissu/cchistu.
		def.m.sg	professor	call.3sg.pst	dom	dem.m.sg
		‘The teacher called this/that (guy).’
	c.	Vuògghiu		*(a)	quaccarunu.
		want.1sg.pst		dom	somebody
		‘I want somebody.’
	d.	Nun	vuògghiu	*(a)	nnuḍu.
		neg	want.1sg.pst	dom	nobody
		I don’t want anybody.’				(Ragusa)

The ‘overt D’ condition is a necessary one: objects where the D area is left empty, i.e., where no D item is overtly realized, are never a-marked, as demonstrated by (46), which has a bare nominal. We have seen that Romanian bare nominals, as in (19)(a), are similarly excluded from differential marking; the same restriction appears to hold for clitic doubling Balkan languages, even if various exceptions have been pointed out in the literature (see, among others, Kallulli and Tasmowski 2008b).

(46)	Vitti	(*a)	surdati	ka	pssàunu.
	see.1sg.pst	dom	soldier.pl	that	pass-by.3pl.pst
	‘I saw soldiers who passed by.’				(Ragusa)

One important difference from Romanian is that [-animate] objects are never a-marked; this can be seen in the examples in (47), where pronominal items ((47)(a–c)) and full nominal phrases (47)(d) tracking a [-animate] referent are incompatible with a-marking. We showed that in Romanian, the [-animate] feature can be overridden in some contexts, especially under nominal ellipsis, for example in sentences such as (11).

(47)	a.	U	prufissuri			pigghiàu		(*a)	chistu.
		def.m.sg	professor			take.3sg.pst		dom	this
		‘The teacher picked up this one (thing).’
	b.	Vuògghiu	(*a)			quarchiccosa
		want.1sg.pst	dom			something
		‘I want something.’
	c.	Nun	vuògghiu			(*a)		nenti.
		neg	want.1sg.pst			dom		nothing
		‘I don’t want anything.’
	d.	Vitti	(*a)	n	/	*o	/	u	tàvulu.
		see.1sg.pst	dom	a.m.sg		dom+def.m.sg		def.m.sg	table.m.sg
		‘I saw a/the table.’
	e.	Vitti	i	/		*e		casi.
		see.1sg.pst	def.pl			dom+def.pl		house.pl
	‘I saw the houses.’								(Ragusa)

An important difference between the two languages is thus related to the nature of nominal ellipsis and its structure. Nominal ellipsis does not appear to involve functional material above D in Ragusa. This, in turn, has consequences on a distinction in the internal structure of differentially marked objects in Romance: as López (2012) also notices in some languages, differentially marked objects contain the D head with an animacy index ((48)(a)), while others require a lager structure, for example a KP, as in (48)(b). Ragusa falls into the former class, while Romanian is a clear illustration of the latter setting. In the Romanian type, as functional material beyond the DP is needed, and the K head may override animacy; what is relevant for nominal ellipsis in Romanian is a certain kind of anaphoricity, which is constructed from definiteness (and thus requires the D head besides the additional anaphoricity feature in K), and which goes beyond animacy.

(48)

Some types of [-human] objects are occasionally a-marked in Ragusa if their referent is [+animate], as seen in (49). In this respect, animacy seems to play a role in discriminating between objects that can be a-marked [-human, +animate] and objects that are never a-marked [-animate].

(49)	Vitti	?e	/	i	cani.
	see.1sg.pst	dom+def.pl		def.pl	dog.pl
	‘I saw the dogs’

In Ragusa, differences in terms of definite vs. non-definite readings of the object do not have consequences on a-marking. As far as the role of specificity is concerned, ‘the evidence collected so far in Ragusa has not provided any decisive data’ (Guardiano 2023, p. 215). There are dialects of Sicily (for example Mussomeli, Cruschina p.c.) where a, with certain types of objects (e.g., negative quantifiers or pronominal objects), seems to be required with a specific reading: no such evidence has been found in Ragusa, so far. Though, it is not to be excluded that the specific vs. non-specific reading occasionally plays a role in the cases of ‘optional’ DOM, i.e., with objects that show overt D and are [+animate]. In most positions, [+animate] objects freely alternate between the presence and absence of a-marking, as shown in (50)(a), (b), and (c). One exception to free alternation is represented by objects in (contrastive) topic position, that do not accept a-marking, as shown in (50)(d). According to the speakers, the latter is strongly dispreferred (although not impossible).

(50)	a.	Pòttimi		(a)	ssu	cani.
		bring.1sg.dat.cl		dom	dem.m.sg	dog
		‘Bring me that dog!’
	b.	Pottammillu			(a)	ssu	cani.
		bring.1sg.dat.cl.3sg.m.acc.cl			dom	dem.m.sg	dog
		‘Bring me that dog!’
	c.	(A)	ssu	cani	pottammillu.
		dom	dem.m.sg	dog	bring.1sg.dat.cl.3sg.m.acc.cl
		‘Bring me that dog!’
	d.	Ssu	cani,	pòttimi		(no	l’auṭṛu).
		dem.m.sg	dog	bring.1sg.dat.cl		neg	def-other
		‘Bring me that dog!’ (with strongly marked intonation on ssu cani)

In Ragusa, categories that normally need differential object marking when found in situ can marginally drop the differential marker if dislocated to the left periphery as a result of topicalization (also under focus), as shown by the contrasts between (51)(a) and (b) and (52)(a) and (b). This is another difference from Romanian, which we address in more detail in the next subsection.

(51)	a.	Nun	vìttimu	*(a)	nnuḍu.
		neg	see.1pl.pst	dom	nobody
		‘We didn’t see anybody.’
	b.	(A)	nnuḍu	vìttimu.
		dom	nobody	see.1pl.pst
		‘We didn’t see anybody.’ (with marked intonation on nnuḍu)			(Ragusa)

(52)	a.	Am	a	ccircari	*(a)	quarcarunu.
		have.1pl	to	look.for	dom	someone
		‘We need to look for someone.’
	b.	A	quarcarunu	am	a	ccircari
		dom	someone	have.1pl	to	look.for
		‘Someone, we need to look for him.’
	c.	Quarcarunu,	am	a	ccircari
		someone	have.1pl	to	look.for
		‘As for someone, we need to look for him.’
		(with strongly marked intonation on quarcarunu)					(Ragusa)

4.1. Dropping the Differential Marker under Dislocation: Back to Romanian

In Romanian, overt displacement to the left periphery in order to signal a familiarity topic or a direct object under contrastive focus does not yield grammaticality if the category normally requires differential marking in situ; if anything, overt displacement to the left periphery enriches differential marking possibilities and does not reduce them. This is seen in (53).

(53)	a.	Căutăm	*(pe)	cineva.
		look for.1pl	dom	somebody
		‘We are looking for somebody.’
	b.	*(Pe)	cineva/*(PE)	CINEVA,	căutăm.
		dom	somebody/dom	somebody	look for.1pl
		Literally: ‘Somebody, we are looking for.’				(Romanian)

There is one exception, related to the realization of aboutness topics, which cannot have the differential marker, or for that matter any type of overt case marking. This restriction imposed by aboutness topics is not a quirk of Romanian; it is exhibited by many other languages with overt object marking (see, for example, the discussion about Bulgarian in Krapova and Cinque (2008)). The two sentences in (54) illustrate an honorific animate DP accompanied by a demonstrative (another similar example is in (9)(d)). This type of nominal cannot be used without differential marking as an in situ direct object; the same restriction holds for indirect objects, where dative case morphology is similarly needed.

(54)	a.	O	voi	invita la	nuntă		*(pe)	doamna
		cl.acc.3f.sg fut.1sg		invite.inf at	wedding		dom	lady.def.f.sg
		aceea		binevoitoare.
		that.f.sg.aug		kind.f.sg
		‘I will invite that kind lady to the wedding.’
	b.	Îi		voi	da	un	cadou	doamnei
		cl.dat.3sg		fut.1sg	give.inf	a.n.sg	gift	lady.dat.f.sg
		aceleia		binevoitoare/*doamna			aceea	binevoitoare
		that.dat.f.sg.aug		kind.f.sg/lady.def.f.sg			that.f.sg.aug	kind.f.sg
		‘I will give a gift to the kind lady.’						(Romanian)

This DP can be dislocated to the right periphery, either as a direct object or an indirect object. Dislocation can be implemented under two morphological realizations. On the one hand, there are various types of foci, and also the familiarity topic, which must preserve the differential marker on the direct object and the dative case on the indirect object.

(55)	a.	*(Pe)	doamna		aceea	binevoitoare			o	voi
		dom	lady.def.f.sg		that.f.sg.aug	kind.f.sg			cl.acc.3f.sg	fut.1sg
		invita	la	nuntă.
		invite.inf at		wedding
		‘That kind lady, I will invite to the wedding.’
	b.	Doamnei		aceleia		binevoitoare/*doamna			aceea
		lady.dat.f.sg		that.dat.f.sg.aug		kind.f.sg/ lady.def.f.sg			that.f.sg.aug
		binevoitoare, îi			voi	da	un	cadou
		kind.f.sg		cl.dat.3sg	fut.1sg	give.inf	a.n.sg gift
		‘To that kind lady, I will give a gift.’							(Romanian)

On the other hand, there is the aboutness topic, a category that does not allow dislocated nominals with overt case marking. The DP must use its unmarked form instead. Examine the difference between the overt morphology of the direct and indirect objects in (55) and the lack of overt morphology on the aboutness topics in (56). The underlying grammatical relation of the unmarked nominal is still revealed by the resumptive clitic; the latter has accusative morphology in (56)(a), while it has dative morphology in (56)(b). Note that the unmarked aboutness topic in (56)(b) is characteristic of informal speech.

(56)	a.	Doamna		aceea		binevoitoare,	sigur	o		voi
		lady.def.f.sg		that.f.sg.aug		kind.f.sg	certain	cl.acc.3f.sg		fut.1sg
		Invita	la	nuntă.
		invite.inf	at	wedding
		‘About that kind lady, I will definitely invite her to the wedding.’
	b.	Doamna		aceea		binevoitoare,	sigur	o	să
		lady.def.f.sg		that.f.sg.aug		kind.f.sg	certain	fut	sbjv
		îi		dau	un	cadou.
		cl.dat.3sg		give.1sg	a.n.sg gift
		‘About/regarding that kind lady, I will definitely give her a gift.’
		(Romanian)

Despite the availability of aboutness topics in Romanian, not all DPs can fulfill this function. For example, the animate quantifier illustrated in (53) cannot do so and thus cannot be used without the differential marker when realized as a dislocated direct object. This signals another difference between Ragusa and Romanian, first of all related to the nature of hanging topics, and subsequently to differential marking. In general, what the discussion above indicated is that the distinctions in the structural setup and interpretive possibilities in the two languages go beyond the contexts that are traditionally addressed in the literature.

5. Clitic Resumption and Clitic Doubling in Ragusa

As the examples discussed so far show, in Ragusa, a-marked objects do not require clitic doubling. This restriction encompasses not only lexical DPs, but also tonic pronouns used as direct objects. By contrast, animate DPs realized as direct objects normally need clitic doubling in Romanian. The latter is, moreover, obligatory with tonic pronouns (which must also be differentially marked).

(57)	a.	Profesorul	*(m)-a	chemat	*(pe) mine.
		professor.def.m.sg	cl.acc.1sg-have.3sg	called	dom		1sg.acc
		‘The professor called me.’
	b.	Profesorul	*(l)-a	chemat	*(pe) el.
		professor.def.m.sg cl.acc.3m.sg-have.3sg		called	dom	3sg.m
		‘The professor called him.’			(Romanian)

The presence of accusative clitic doubling on objects that are already marked, besides delimitating a typological class (see especially Cornilescu 2006; Cornilescu and Dobrovie-Sorin 2008; Tigău 2011; Hill and Mardale 2021 for Romanian), has various interpretive and structural correlates. For example, as we have seen, clitic doubling opens the possibility for the marked object to take scope over the external argument in Romanian (Cornilescu 2020; a.o.).

In Ragusa, there are a-marked objects that can (or must) exhibit a reduplicating clitic pronoun, as can be seen in (58)(a) and (58)(b).

(58)	a.	E	picciuòtti		i	vìttimu	(a	ttutti)
		dom+def.pl	young.person.pl		cl.acc.pl	see.1pl.pst	dom	all.pl
		‘As for the boys, we saw them (all).’
	b.	I	vìttimu	(a	ttutti)	e	picciuòtti.
		cl.acc.3pl see.1pl.pst		dom	all.pl	dom+def.pl	young.person.pl
		‘As for the boys, we saw them (all).’						(Ragusa)

In these examples, the clitic items seem to display a resumptive nature which requires some investigation. The literature mentions that in the Romance dialects of Southern Italy, ‘clitic doubling is widespread, especially with indirect objects […] and direct objects marked by the prepositional accusative […] although this in large part coincides with the tendency to dislocate given/topicalized constituents’ (Ledgeway 2016, p. 265). Actually, on closer examination, it turns out that what examples such as (58) signal is clitic resumption: the lexical correlate, in line with Ledgeway’s observation, involves overt dislocation to the right or the left periphery, and in some cases, even special prosody in the sense of a break which separates the dislocated element from the main clause. Remember from Table 1 that dislocation is characteristic of clitic resumption and not of clitic doubling.

As expected, the resumptive clitic is not restricted to [+human] or [+animate] referents. The dislocated direct objects in (59) are, in fact, inanimate.

(59)	a.	U	libbru,	u	cumprammu
		def.m.sg	book.m.sg	cl.acc.3m.sg.	buy.1pl.pst
		‘As for the book, we bought it.’
	b.	I	casi,	*(i)	vìttimu	(tutti)
		def.pl	house.pl	cl.acc.pl	see.1pl.pst	all.pl
		‘As for the houses, we saw (all of) them.’
	c.	I	casi,	i	vìttimu	(tutti).
		def.pl	house.pl	cl.acc.pl	see.1pl.pst	all.pl
		‘As for the houses, we saw them (all).’
	d.	I	vìttimu	(tutti),	i	casi.
		cl.acc.3pl	see.1pl.pst	all.pl	def.pl	house.pl
		‘As for the houses, we saw them (all).’				(Ragusa)

The fact that clitic resumption applies to direct objects regardless of humanness/animacy is not surprising in the Romance languages. We have seen it in Romanian too, in examples such as (39); as opposed to clitic doubling, which is restricted to in situ differentially marked objects (generally animate), clitic resumption becomes obligatory with inanimate definites too, which are not differentially marked.

As we showed in the previous sections, our focus are clitic doubling as a means of differentially marking objects and its interactions with prepositional DOM in Romanian. By contrast, clitic resumption is not a grammatical trait that would help us uniformly map differences and similarities between Romance and non-Romance languages in the Balkans (clitic resumption is seen in all the Balkan Sprachbund languages and also in the Romance family, regardless of the more specific means employed for DOM17). Yet, given that, especially in the dialects of Southern Italy, the distinction between clitic doubling ‘proper’ and instances of resumption is not straightforward (see also Braitor 2017). In the remainder of this section, we will check the properties of both types of constructions and their relation to DOM.

Clitic Resumption

As in many other dialects of Southern Italy, in Ragusa, clitic resumption is possible with [+given] objects; these objects are dislocated as a rule (see Cruschina 2012, Ch. 2, for an overview): ‘we note an overwhelming tendency for all dialects obligatorily to vacate all given/topical constituents from the sentential core dislocating them (with resumptive clitics where available) to the left (or right) periphery hence the apparent high incidence of clitic doubling’ (Ledgeway 2016, p. 269). The dislocated objects in (59) conform to this generalization, as they must be interpreted as [+given].

The sentences in (60)–(64) show other contexts in which the referents of the direct objects are not novel in the discourse, and the direct object is dislocated. In all these cases, clitic resumption is required. In (60) and (61)(a), the direct object undergoes left dislocation, while (61)(b) illustrates right dislocation.

(60)	Who was looking for the/that/this book?
	U	/	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	libbru,	*(u)	circava	Anna.
	def.m.sg		dem.m.sg	book.m.sg	cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.impf.pst	Anna
	‘Anna was looking for the/that/this book.’

(61)	What happened to this/that/the book?
	a.	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu /		u	libbru,	Anna	*(u)	circava.
		dem.m.sg		def.m.sg	book.m.sg	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.impf.pst
		‘About this/that/the book, Anna was looking for it.’
	b.	Anna	*(u)	circava,		ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu		/u	libbru.
		Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.impf.pst		dem.m.sg		def.m.sg	book.m.sg
		‘About this/that/the book, Anna was looking for it.’

(62)	Context: we were talking about a book that Anna was looking for
	a.	U		sai	ka	ssu	/	u	libbru	Anna
		cl.acc.3m,sg		know.2sg	that	dem.m.sg		def.m.sg	book.m.sg	Anna
		*(u)		ṭṛuvàu?
		cl.acc.3m.sg		find.3sg.pst
		‘You know, Anna found that/the book (she was looking for).’
	b.	U		sai	ka	Anna		*(u)	ṭṛuvàu,
		cl.acc.3m.sg		know.2sg	that	Anna		cl.acc.3m.sg	find.3sg.pst
		ssu	/	u	libbru?
		dem.m.sg		def.m.sg	book.m.sg
		‘You know, Anna found that/the book (she was looking for).’

(63)	Context: we are talking about the beginning of the new school year
	A1.	I	libbra,	*(i)	cumprasti?
		def.pl	book.pl	cl.acc.pl	buy.2sg.pst
	A2.	*(I)	cumprasti	i	libbra?
		cl.acc.3pl	buy.2sg.pst	def.pl	book.pl
		‘Did you buy the books?’
	B.	Se,	i	libbra,	*(i)	cumprammu.
		Yes	def.pl	book.pl	cl.acc.pl	buy.1pl.pst
		‘Yes, we bought the books.’

(64)	Context: we are talking about the beginning of the new school year
	A1.	I	libbra,	*(i)	cumprasti?
		def.pl	book.pl	cl.acc.pl	buy.2sg.pst
	A2.	*(I)	cumprasti,	i	libbra?
		cl.acc.3pl	buy.2sg.pst	def.pl	book.pl
		‘Did you buy the books?’
	B.	Nu	libbru,	*(u)	cumprammu,	l’auṭṛi	ancora	no.
		a.m.sg	book.m.sg	cl.acc.m.sg	buy.1pl.pst	the.other.pl	yet	neg
		‘As for one of the books, we bought it, as for the others, not yet.’
		(Ragusa)

Direct objects associated with focus, for example wh-elements, cannot occur with a resumptive clitic: the examples in (65), containing a wh- direct object that is inherently focused, are ungrammatical with the clitic.

(65)	a.	Cchi	(*u)	vviristi?
		what	cl.acc.3.m.sg	see.3sg.pst
		‘What did you see?’
	b.	A	ccu	(*u)	viristi?
		dom	who	cl.acc.3.m.sg	see.3sg.pst
		‘Who did you see?’			(Ragusa)

Similarly, when a direct object is fronted under contrastive focus, it is incompatible with clitic resumption, as demonstrated by the contexts in (66).

(66)	a.	I	libbra	(*i)	cumprammu	(no	i	quaderna).
		def.pl	book.pl	cl.acc.3pl	buy.1pl.pst	neg	def.pl	notebook.pl
		‘We bought the books, not the notebooks.’
	b.	U	libbru,	(*u)		cumprammu
		def.m.sg	book.m.sg	cl.acc.3.m.sg		buy.1pl.pst
		(no	u	quadernu).
		neg	def.m.sg	notebook.m.sg
		‘We bought the book, not the notebook.’
	c.	A	Mmàriu	(*u)	vìttimu,	(no	a	Ggiovanni)
		dom	Mario	cl.acc.3.m.sg	see.1pl.pst	neg	dom	Giovanni
		‘We saw Mario, not Giovanni.’
	d.	E	picciuòtti		(*i)	vìttimu,
		dom+def.pl	young.person.pl		cl.acc.3pl	see.1pl.pst
		(no	e		prufissura)
		neg	dom+def.pl		teacher.pl
		‘We saw the pupils, not the teachers.’						(Ragusa)

In conclusion, there does not seem to be any direct relation between differential marking and clitic resumption in the dialect of Ragusa: the constraints that act on a-marking of direct objects are independent from those operating on clitic resumption. This is shown by the fact that clitic resumption can occur without DOM (examples (60)–(64) and also (70) below) and that DOM can occur in contexts where resumption is ruled out (e.g., when the object is associated with focus, as in (65)(b), (66)(c), and (66)(d), or when it introduces a novel referent, as in (68) and (69)).

(67)	i	casi,	*(i)	vìttimu	(tutti)
	def.pl	house.pl	cl.acc.pl	see.1pl.pst	all.pl
	‘We saw (all) the houses.’				(Ragusa)

(68)	What did Anna do?
	Anna	(*u)	ciamàu	o	/	a	nu
	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	call.3sg.pst	dom+def.m.sg		dom	a.m
	picciuòttu.
	young.person.m.sg
	‘Anna called the/a young guy.’						(Ragusa)

(69)	Who did Anna call?
	Anna	(*u)	ciamàu	o	/	a	nu
	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	call.3sg.pst	dom+def.m.sg		dom	a.m
	picciuòttu.
	young.person.m.sg
	‘Anna called the/a young guy.’							(Ragusa)

When the conditions that trigger DOM and those that trigger resumption both apply, for example, when a [+human] object with an overt D is left or right dislocated, DOM and clitic resumption co-occur, as shown in (70), (71), (72), and (73).

(70)	E	picciuòtti	*(i)	vìttimu	(a	ttutti)
	dom+def.pl	young.person.pl	cl.acc.pl	see.1pl.pst	dom	all.pl
	‘We saw (all) the guys.’				(Ragusa)

(71)	Who was looking for the/that/this guy?
	O		/	*(a)	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	picciuòttu	*(u)
	dom+def.m.sg			dom	dem.m.sg	young.person.m.sg	cl.acc.3m.sg
	circava				Anna
	look for.3sg.pst				Anna
	‘About the/that/this guy, Anna was looking for him.’						(Ragusa)

(72)	What happened to this/that/the guy?
	a.	A	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	/	o	picciuòttu		Anna
		dom	dem.m.sg		dom+def.m.sg	young.person.m.sg		Anna
		*(u)	circava
		cl.acc.3m.sg	look for.3sg.pst
		‘About this/that/the guy, Anna was looking for him.’
	b.	Anna	*(u)	circava,		a	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu /	o
		Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	look for.3sg.pst		dom	dem.m.sg	dom+def.m.s
		picciuòttu
		young.person.m.sg
		‘About this/that/the guy, Anna was looking for him.’						(Ragusa)

(73)	Context: we were talking about a book that Anna was looking for
	a.	U		sai	ka	a	ssu	/	o
		cl.acc.3m.sg		know.2sg	that	dom	dem.m.sg		dom+def.m.sg
		picciuòttu			Anna	*(u)	ṭṛuvàu?
		young.person.m.sg			Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	find.3sg.pst
		‘You know, Anna found that/the guy (she was looking for).’
	b.	U		sai	ka	Anna	*(u)		ṭṛuvàu
		cl.acc.3m.sg		know.2sg	that	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg		find.3sg.pst
		a	ssu	/	o		picciuòttu?
		dom	dem.m.sg		dom+def.m.sg		young.person.m.sg
		‘You know, Anna found that/the guy (she was looking for).’							(Ragusa)

As shown in all these examples, ‘the resumptive clitic and the NP object must agree in person, number and, when appropriate, gender’ (Roberts 2016, p. 789). Moreover, the resumptive clitic has accusative morphology, no matter whether the direct object is a-marked or not.

The examples in (74) and (75) show that a non-dislocated direct object cannot be clitic doubled. In these examples, the direct object is [-human] and therefore it is not expected to be differentially marked.

(74)	What was Anna doing?
	Anna	(*u)	circava	nu	/	u	/	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	libbru.
	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.pst	a.m.sg		def.m.sg		dem.m.sg	book.m.sg
	‘Anna was looking for a/the/that/this book.’								(Ragusa)

(75)	What was Anna looking for?
	Anna	(*u)	circava	nu	/	u	/	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	libbru.
	Anna	cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.pst	a.m.sg		def.m.sg		dem.m.sg	book.m.sg
	‘Anna was looking for a/the/that/this book.’								(Ragusa)

By contrast, a direct object with a [+human] referent must be differentially marked, no matter whether it is dislocated or not, as shown above in (44) and also in (76) and (77). When not dislocated, it does not trigger clitic doubling/resumption. This is in contrast to what we saw for Romanian in Section 3.

(76)	What was Anna doing?
	Anna		(*u)	circava	*(a)	nu	/	o	/	*u
	Anna		cl.acc.3sm.g	look for.3sg.pst	dom	a.m.sg		dom.def.m.sg/def.m.sg
	/	*(a)	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	picciuòttu.
	dom		dem.m.sg	young.person.m.sg
	‘Anna was looking for a/the/that/this guy.’									(Ragusa)

(77)	What was Anna looking for?
	Anna		(*u)	circava	*(a)	nu	/	o	/	*u
	Anna		cl.acc.3m.sg	look.for.3sg.pst	dom	a.m.sg		dom.def.m.sg/def.m.sg
	/	*(a)	ḍḍu/ssu/ṣṭu	picciuòttu.
	dom		dem.m.sg	young.person.m.sg
	‘Anna was looking for a/the/that/this guy.’									(Ragusa)

The contexts discussed so far do not seem to provide any evidence for clear instances of clitic doubling in Ragusa, nor of any connection between clitic doubling and DOM: clitic resumption phenomena and a-marking are triggered by separate constraints, and their co-occurrence appears as an epiphenomenon.

One class of examples where a non-dislocated direct object is doubled by a clitic pronoun involves the universal quantifier, as in (78). Given that in these instances, the direct object is not dislocated and, moreover, no heavy prosodic break is present, the clitic shows characteristics that seem to be more similar to doubling than to resumption. Yet, sentences similar to (78) are frequent (and possible) in many languages (Sportiche 1996; Kayne 2000; Tsakali 2008; Cruschina 2010), including those that do not have clitic doubling (such as Italian or French), a fact that ‘makes us suspicious as to whether we should analyze the clitic floating quantifiers dependencies as typical instance of clitic doubling’ (Tsakali 2008, p. 198). In the absence of a more precise analysis of these constructions in Sicilian, we note here that clitic resumption (/doubling?) in this type of constructions is possible, but is unrelated to DOM: as the contrast between (78)(a/b) and (78)c shows, both differentially and non-differentially marked objects can be ‘doubled’.

(78)	a.	i	vitti	a	ttutti.
		cl.acc.3pl	saw.1sg	dom	all.pl
		‘I saw them all.’
	b.	i	ciamài	a	ttutti.
		cl.acc.3pl	called.1sg	dom	all.pl
		‘I called them all.’
	c.	i	fici	(*a)	tutti.
		cl.acc.3pl	made.1sg	dom	all.pl
		‘I made them all.’		(only inanimate)		(Ragusa)

To summarize, the dialect of Ragusa shares important structural traits with Romanian when it comes to differential marking; for example, it uses a prepositional strategy that is dependent on humanness/animacy. Points of variation arise with respect to the following properties: (i) overriding animacy (in Romanian, DOM is needed even on inanimates in certain contexts, while in Ragusa, this option is not allowed); (ii) interactions with information structure under dislocation (in Romanian, DOM is not generally removed under dislocation (for topicalization, focus) on those categories that obligatorily require the special prepositional marker18, while in Ragusa, dislocation under topicalization might imply the removal of DOM); and (iii) interactions with clitic doubling (in Romanian, differentially marked objects allow (and some DOM classes might in fact require) clitic doubling, while in Ragusa, this is not the case).

We also see that these differences with respect to Romanian do not unify Ragusa with the clitic doubling Balkan languages either; the latter do not have [humanness/animacy] as the regulating factor, do not exhibit the type of differential marking based on conjunctive sets of features, cannot drop clitic doubling under topicalization (instead differential marking via clitic doubling is obligatory), and permit clitic doubling of objects to begin with.

In

Table 3. DOM in Romanian and Ragusa.

Correlate	Romanian	Ragusa
Prepositional strategy	+	+
Humanness/animacy	+	+
Overriding animacy	+	–
anti-incorporation	+	+
blocking bare nouns	+	+
DOM dropped under dislocation for topicalization	–	+
clitic doubling on DOM	+	–

, we summarize the similarities and the differences between Romanian and Ragusa, while

Table 4. DOM strategies: Cl-doubling (Greek, Albanian, Macedonian) vs. prep-DOM (Romanian, Ragusa).

Correlate	Cl-Doubling (Alb, Bulg, Maced, Bulgarian)	Prep-DOM (Rom, Ragusa)	Prep-DOM + Cl-Double (Rom)
sensitivity to animacy	–	+	+
[+given]	Albanian, Bulgarian	–	–
creates factivity (on clauses)	Albanian, Greek	–	–
anti-incorporation	+ (all)	+ (but not sufficient)	+ (but not sufficient)
prepositional DOM	–	+	+ (with clitic doubling, Romanian, no clitic doubling in Ragusa)
clitic doubling on unmarked nominals	+	–	–
blocking bare nouns	+ (all)	+	+
DOM above EA	+ (clitic doubling)	–	– (see Section 6)
Clitic doubled prepositional DOM above EA	–		see Section 6
excludes [focus]	Albanian, Greek	–	+
conjunctive features	–	+	+

contains a comparison of Ragusa with both Romanian and non-Romance Balkan differential marking via clitic doubling. Interactions between clitic doubling and binding into the external argument will be addressed in the next section.

6. Object Position(s) in Romanian and Ragusa: Further Observations

The previous sections reveal a complex picture of differential object marking strategies in the Balkans, where both a Romance pattern and a non-Romance clitic doubling pattern are active. Ragusa, although mainly following the Romance setting, presents some distinctive traits that do not yet in any respect relate this dialect to the non-Romance type either. To better understand the characteristics of Ragusa object marking, in this section, we add some further remarks about direct objects, their position(s), and binding possibilities.

6.1. Clitic Doubling and Binding into the External Argument

We saw in the previous sections that clitic doubling can help us probe the position of the object, as it opens up the possibility of the object binding into the external argument (the subject). In Romanian, for many speakers, only clitic doubling on the (differentially marked) object permits the possibility of binding into the external argument. That is, only in (79)(b) and (80)(b) can a coreferential interpretation between the direct object and the subject be obtained. In (79)(a) and (80)(a), instead, where the accusative clitic double is not present, coreference between the subject and the direct object is not obtained.

(79)	Romanian undoubled and clitic doubled differentially marked objects
	a.	Muzica	lor*i	plictiseşte	pe	mulţi i.
		music.def.f.sg	their	annoy.3sg	dom	many.m.pl
		‘Their music annoys many.’
	b.	Muzica	lor	îii		plictiseşte	pe	mulţii.
		music.def.f.sg	their	cl.acc.3m.pl		annoy.3sg	dom	many.m.pl
		‘Their (own) music annoys many.’
		(Romanian, Cornilescu 2020, e.g., 24, 25, p. 164)

(80)	Romanian undoubled and clitic doubled differentially marked objects
	a.	Părinţii	lor*i	ajută	pe	toţi i	copiii.
		parent.def.m.pl	their	help.3pl	dom	all.m.pl	child.m.pl.def.m.pl
		‘Their parents help all the children.’
	b.	Părinţii	lor	ȋii	ajută	pe	toţi i
		parent.def.m.pl	their	cl.acc.3m.pl	help.3pl	dom	all.m.pl
		copiii.
		child.m.pl.def.m.pl
		‘Their (own) parents help all the children.’

Splits of this type can be taken to suggest that differentially marked objects are licensed in a position below Spec, VoiceP, where external arguments are introduced, as schematically indicated in the structure repeated in (81). However, the more precise position of undoubled differentially marked objects is harder to ascertain; for one, it is not clear what type of movement such objects undergo, whether they stay in situ or whether they rise above VP to a position below VoiceP. As we will show in the next subsection, a potential diagnostic that could be used to further test the position of non-clitic doubled DPs, namely coordination between marked and unmarked objects, does not produce reliable results.

(81)

On the other hand, in Ragusa, for most speakers, binding by a direct object into the external argument does not seem to depend on differential marking or clitic doubling. The examples in (82) and (83) show that in these constructions, binding into the external argument is possible, regardless of the presence of prepositional DOM or clitic doubling. The sentences in (82) contain a nominal object modified by the quantifier tutti. The referent is [+human] in (82)(a), [-human, +animate] in (82)(b), and [-animate] in (82)(c). The object is not clitic doubled and does not appear to be dislocated (or prosodically marked). In these cases, as expected, the [+human] object is obligatorily a-marked, the [-human, +animate] is optionally a-marked, and the [-animate] one is unmarked.

(82)	a.	a	so j	maiṣṭra	(si)	ciamàu	*(a)	ttutti j	i
		def.f.sg	poss3	teacher.f.sg	self	call.3sg.pst	dom	all.pl	def.pl
		picciriḍi
		kid.pl
		‘Their teacher called all the kids (to her).’
	b.	u	so j	(stissu)	viliènu	ammazzàu	(a)	ttutti j	i
		def.m.sg	poss3	self.m.sg	venom.m.sg	kill.3sg.pst	dom	all.pl	def.pl
		ṣcursùna
		snake.pl
		‘Their/his venom killed all the snakes.’
	c.	u	so j	stissu	pisu	ṣbracàu		tutti	i
		def.m.sg	poss3	self.m.sg	weight.m.sg	destroy.3sg.pst		all.pl	def.pl
		casi
		house.pl
		‘Their own weight destroyed all the houses.’						(Ragusa)

In turn, the examples in (83) contain the same nominals with no lexical noun. In this case, an accusative pronominal clitic appears. The direct object is not dislocated and, prosodically, does not exhibit a heavy break. Binding into the external argument is possible, as expected.

(83)	a.	a	so j	maiṣṭra		i	ciamàu	*(a)	ttutti j
		def.f.sg	poss3	teacher.f.sg		cl.acc.3pl	call.3sg.pst	dom	all.pl
		‘Their teacher called them all.’
	b.	u	so j	(stissu)	viliènu	i	mmazzàu	(a)	ttutti j
		def.m.sg	poss3	self.m.sg.	Venom.m.sg	cl.acc.3pl	kill.3sg.pst	dom	all.pl
		‘Their/his venom killed them all.’
	c.	u	so j	stissu	pisu	i	ṣbracàu		tutti
		def.m.sg	poss3	self.m.sg	weight.m.sg	cl.acc.3pl	destroy.3sg.pst		all.pl
		‘Their own weight destroyed them all.’						(Ragusa)

Therefore, the clitic double has access to a position above VoiceP, as we already saw, and as represented schematically in (84). In Romanian, clitics are T-oriented (Hill and Mardale 2021). A position above T is necessary for Ragusa clitics too. But what are the consequences for the lexical part of the object? For Ragusa objects and Romanian clitic doubled differentially marked objects, does this imply that the lexical part of the object also rises (covertly or overly) above VoiceP? What kind of evidence can be used in order to answer this question? In the next subsection, we present some remarks from coordination.

(84)

6.2. Asymmetric Coordination and the Position of Objects

Paparounas and Saltzmann (2023) used coordination between clitic doubled and undoubled objects (a type of asymmetric coordination) as a test in Greek to support the conclusion that the lexical part in clitic doubled objects does not undergo (overt or covert) raising to a position above VoiceP. If it were to do so, the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) would be violated and ungrammaticality would follow in examples such as (85). The puzzle is that sentences such as (85) are grammatical in Greek (at least for some speakers); the first conjunct of the coordination ([_CoordP you and Maria]) is clitic doubled. It is also possible to use a second person plural clitic double, which will entail plural reference for the two conjuncts. However, what is not possible is to have a clitic doubling the second conjunct only.

(85)	[Se/	sas/		*tin]	iða	[esena	ke
	cl.acc.2sg	cl.acc.2pl		cl.acc.3f.sg	see.pst.1sg	you.acc	and
	ti	Maria]	sto		parko.
	def.f.sg	Maria	in.def.m.sg		park
	‘I saw you and Maria in the park.’
	(Greek, Paparounas and Saltzmann 2023, ex., 1, p. 2)

Any type of movement approaches to clitic doubling would predict ungrammaticality due to a violation of the CSC, which prohibits the extraction of any of the conjuncts in a coordination. Greek is subject to the CSC, as indicated by contexts in which the (overt) extraction of any of the elements in a coordination result in ungrammaticality, for example in (86), where extraction is attempted on the second conjunct.

(86)	*[Ke	to	Jani]1	iða	ti	Maria____1	sto
	and	def.acc.m.sg	John	see.pst.1sg	def.f.sg	Maria	in.def.m.sg
	parko.
	park
	Intended: ‘It was with John that I saw Mary in the park.’
	(Lit. ‘[And John]1 I saw Maria __1 in the park.’
	(Greek, Paparounas and Saltzmann 2023, ex., 6, p. 6)

There are two important types of analyses of the structure of clitic doubling. The ‘Big DP’ structure presupposes that the clitic double is base generated with its DP correlate inside a larger constituent, as in (87)(a). Subsequently the clitic undergoes raising, but if the ‘Big DP’ is part of a coordination, this raising operation would automatically entail a violation of the CSC. A second theoretical line assumes that the clitic double is base generated high, above vP/VoiceP, and it is the DP correlate that rises (with subsequent deletion of the high copy), as in (87)(b). In coordination, this type of structure is equally problematic as a violation of the CSC.

(87)

Paparounas and Saltzmann (2023) argue instead for an Agree-based analysis for clitic doubling, under which the clitic is base generated high in the functional clausal domain and it enters into an Agree relation with its correlate at a distance, without triggering the covert raising of the latter. The two authors also provide evidence against a sentential ellipsis structure in these types of coordination.

The problem is that the coordination test, despite its potential usefulness, does not go as smoothly in Romanian and Ragusa; in the latter language, coordinating unmarked and marked objects does not seem to be permitted in various instances and thus might be left aside. In Romanian, in turn, even if a differentially marked and an unmarked object might be possible under coordination, as in (88), examples similar to the Greek one in (85) are more challenging.

(88)	Am	văzut	fata	şi	pe	mama	ei.
	have.1	seen	girl.def.f.sg	and	dom	mother.def.f.sg	her
	‘I saw the girl and her mother.’						(Romanian)

First, a plural clitic attempted as a double in a coordination containing a marked and an unmarked nominal does not lead to a grammatical output in Romanian; this is not necessarily unexpected, given that in Romanian, only differentially marked objects can be clitic doubled. As such, the plural clitic must be removed in (89).

(89)	(*Le)-am	văzut	fata	şi	pe	mama	ei.
	cl.acc.3f.pl-have.1	seen	girl.def.f.sg	and	dom	mother.def.f.sg	her
	‘I saw the girl and her mother.’					(Romanian)

Similarly, in (90)(a), the first nominal is differentially marked, while the second one cannot have differential marking because it is inanimate; adding the overt differential marker results in ungrammaticality. Note that in (90)(b), the problem is not that an overt definite co-occurs with the differential marker. A definiteless nominal as in (90)(c) and (90)(d) is equally wrong, because the direct object is an inanimate, cannot take differential marking, and as a result, no clitic doubling either. This demonstrates that (90)(a) does not contain coordination embedded under the differential marker, on the structure DOM [DP₁ and DP₂]. Thus, clitic doubling the coordination between a marked and an unmarked argument does not lead to grammaticality in Romanian.

(90)	a.	*/??Le-am	căutat	pe	fată	şi	rochia.
		cl.acc.3f.pl-have1	searched	dom	girl	and	dress.def.f.sg
		‘I looked for the girl and the dress.’19
	b.	*Am	căutat-o	pe	rochia.
		have	searched-cl.acc.3f.pl	dom	dress.def.f.sg
		Intended: ‘I looked for the dress.’
	c.	*Am	căutat-o	pe	rochie.
		have	searched-cl.acc.3f.pl	dom	dress
		Intended: ‘I looked for the dress.’
	d.	*Am	căutat	pe	rochie
		have	searched	dom	dress
		Intended: ‘I looked for the dress.’					(Romanian)

A plural clitic might be possible with a marked and an unmarked nominal if the first element in the coordination is a pronoun, as in (91). However, we notice in these examples that the plural form of the clitic is possible even if its doubles are nominals that come from sentence fragments, as demonstrated by the presence of event-related prepositional phrases.20 It must, thus, be the case that in these instances, coordination is not established at the DP level, despite the possibility of a plural clitic form. Coordination is, instead, established between sentences, with additional deletion of clausal material at PF. Because of the interference from sentential ellipsis, the asymmetric coordination test is, thus, not relevant for probing the position of clitic doubled differentially marked objects in Romanian.

(91)	a.	Trebuie	să	vă	caute,	pe	tine	în grădină, şi
		must	sbjv	cl.acc.3pl	search.sbjv.3	dom	2sg.acc	in garden and
		copilul		în	parc.
		child.def.m.sg		in	park
		‘They must look for you in the garden, and for the child in the park.’
	b.	Trebuie	să	vă	caute,	pe	tine	în grădină, şi
		must	sbjv	cl.acc.3pl	search.sbjv.3	dom	2sg.acc	in garden and
		copilul		tot	în	grădină.
		child.def.m.sg		also	in	garden
		‘They must look for you in the garden, and for the child also in the garden.’
		(Romanian, Irimia 2023a, fn.4)

Paparounas and Saltzmann (2023) claim that examples such as (85) illustrate bona fide coordination at the nominal level because they can make reference to a single event; in their view, the mono-eventive interpretation cannot be derived under coordination at the sentential level as only the reference to more than one event would be derived in this way. Romanian raises some problems for this assumption; in (91)(b), reference to the same event is possible (that is, an event of looking for both you and the child in the park) even if coordination is realized at the sentential level.

In conclusion, what we see from the binding, and also the coordination contexts, can be summarized as follows: (i) clitic doubled differentially marked objects allow binding into the external argument; (ii) for Romanian, this indicates a higher position of differentially marked objects that are doubled as opposed to those that are not undoubled; (iii) Ragusa speakers permit a pattern in which binding into the External Argument is possible even by unmarked DPs, possibly indicating that a high position can be obtained regardless of differential marking and clitic doubling; and (iv) coordination cannot be used as a diagnostic to prove that the lexical part in the clitic doubled differentially marked objects does not rise (covertly).

6.3. Ragusa and Western Romance

One last aspect we will briefly address refers to the more precise classification of Ragusa DOM in the wider Romance setting. We saw that, despite the use of a prepositional marker and sensitivity to humanness/animacy, Ragusa presents some important idiosyncratic traits: as opposed to Romanian, humanness/animacy cannot be overridden and clitic doubling of differentially marked objects is not normally possible. On the other hand, a crucial difference from non-Romance clitic doubling languages is that clitic doubling is not normally possible. In what follows, the patterns seen in Ragusa are compared with other Western Romance languages that exhibit differential marking.

The observation that clitic doubling is not normally possible on non-quantificational differentially marked objects could be taken to indicate that Ragusa is similar to standard Spanish, as seen from example (92)(a). However, there are important differences between standard Spanish and Ragusa; first, in standard Spanish, clitic doubling is obligatory if the differentially marked argument is a tonic pronoun, as opposed to a non-pronominal category (see the distinction between (92)(a) and (92)(b)); secondly, clitic doubling is not possible on non-differentially marked arguments, as illustrated in (92)(d); thirdly, examples similar to (93) indicate that binding from a differentially marked argument into the external argument is not easily possible in standard Spanish (see the extensive discussion by López 2012).

(92)	a.	(*La)	vi	a	la	mujer.
		cl.acc.3f.sg	see.1sg.pst	dom	def.f.sg	woman
		Intended: ‘I saw the woman.’
	b.	*(La)	vi	*(a)	ella.
		cl.acc.3f.sg	see.1sg.pst	dom	she
		Intended: ‘I saw her.’
	c.	Los	vi	*(a)	todos.
		cl.acc.3m.pl	see.1sg.pst	dom	all.m.pl
		Intended: ‘I saw them all.’
	d.	(*La)	vi	la	casa.
		cl.acc.3f.sg	see.1sg.pst	def.f.sg	house
		Intended: ‘I saw the house.’				(standard Spanish)

(93)	Su j	padre	ayuda	a	cada *j	niño.
	his	father	help.3sg	dom	each	child.m.sg
	Intended: ‘His (own) father helps each child.’
	(standard Spanish, based on López 2012)

There are varieties of Spanish, for example Argentine Spanish, in which binding from a differentially marked argument into the external argument is possible even in the absence of clitic doubling, apparently matching Ragusa. However, these dialects tend to exhibit clitic doubling, regardless of whether the object is differentially marked or not, as discussed by Suñer (1988) or Saab (2021, 2022). This is a clear difference with respect to Ragusa.

(94)	Susj	padres	ayudan	a	todosj	los	niños.
	their	parent.pl	help.3pl	dom	all.m.pl	def.m.pl	child.m.pl
	‘Their (own) parents help all the children.’						(Argentine Spanish)

(95)	Lai	vimos	a	la	niñai
	cl.acc.3f.sg	see.pst.1pl	dom	def.f.sg	girl
	‘We saw the girl.’		(Argentine Spanish, adapted from Saab 2022)

In turn, Gravely (2021a, 2021b) provided evidence for a high position of differentially marked objects in Galician, regardless of clitic doubling. In this language, in fact, objects that are preceded by the prepositional marker must undergo overt raising to a position above the external argument, as in (96). Thus, it is not surprising that differentially marked objects can bind into the subject in the absence of clitic doubling, even if solely based on surface order. Obviously, this pattern is different from what we saw up to now; a differentially marked object illustrates overt raising, a strategy that is not uncommon cross-linguistically (for example, the data from Turkish we briefly illustrated in Section 2).

(96)	Axudou	a	cadai	neno	seui	pai
	help.pst.3sg	dom	each	kid	his	father
	‘His parent helped each child.’		(Galician, Gravely and Irimia 2022, e.g., 20, p. 13)

In conclusion, Ragusa presents important differences from both Balkan and Western Romance DOM languages. In turn, the prepositional strategy based on animacy and the absence of clitic doubling separate it from Balkan non-Romance languages too, when it comes to differential marking.

7. Conclusions

This paper has examined aspects of differential object marking in Romanian, as compared to the dialect of Ragusa and, on the side, with non-Romance Balkan. Focusing on a just two languages at a sufficient level of detail allowed us to better map the similarities and differences between Southern Italy and the Balkans, two areas that have long been discussed as sharing important linguistic traits.

At a general level, Ragusa shares common traits with Romanian in the domain of differential object marking. The two languages exhibit a prepositional strategy which is dependent on humanness/animacy. Much more interesting are their distinctions. At least four aspects are salient. First, Romanian DOM can override animacy in certain contexts, while in Ragusa, this would lead to ungrammaticality. This is due to the distinct internal realizations in the structure of differentially marked objects: DPs with a [humanness] index in Ragusa and KPs in Romanian. Secondly, Romanian DOM is preserved under dislocation, regardless of information structure, while in Ragusa, it can (although rarely) be dropped. Thirdly, while Romanian differentially marked objects can (and in some contexts, must) be clitic doubled, this phenomenon is almost absent in Ragusa. Fourthly, unmarked objects show differences in binding possibilities in the two languages: while in Romanian, clitic doubling is normally needed to make binding available from the marked object into the external argument, in Ragusa, this option is seen with all types of direct objects. The latter three properties also set Ragusa aside from non-Romance clitic doubling languages in the Balkans, such as Greek, Albanian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian, which differentially mark certain types of objects using clitic doubling. Of course, this is additional to the major difference when it comes to the morphosyntactic realization of DOM and its interpretive correlates: prepositional marker and animacy in Romance and clitic doubling in the non-Romance Balkans.