On the nature of differential object marking

Abstract

Palauan (Austronesian) displays a pattern of differential object marking that is limited to the imperfective aspect. In the imperfective, human and/or specific objects are overtly marked. In the perfective aspect, no objects are overtly marked. Conversely, objects in the perfective aspect are cross-referenced by agreement morphology on the verb, while objects in the imperfective aspect never are. I argue that this pattern of aspect-conditioned differential object marking provides support for the position that the phenomenon is best analyzed as arising due to the result of satisfying exceptional licensing requirements enforced by a subset of noun phrases (Kalin 2014).