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Romanian
Glottocode: roma1327
Genalogical classification: Indo-European
Original alignment pattern: Nominative
Source construction: Transitive clause with a topicalized animate P argument: 'As for X, Y VERBed X', as in (1).
Developmental mechanism: The topic marker is reintepreted as a marker of the P argument.
Resulting construction: Transitive constructions with an overtly marked P argument, as in (2), (pe is the modern form of pre).
Type of change: Grammaticalization
Alignment in the resulting construction: Nominative-Accusative
Global alignment pattern following the change: Differential object marking
Constraints on the distribution of the resulting alignment: Accusative marking is restricted to pronouns and animate nouns.
Grammatical domains: Case marking
Symmetry: Asymmetric
Type of data: Historical data
References: Rohlfs 1984, Pensado 1995, Mardale 2010:4-6, Hill & Mardale 2019
Comments:
The Romanian topic marker historically derives from the Latin spatial prepositions per 'through, by' or super 'on top, concerning'. This type of development underlies the rise of differential object marking in several Romance languages (in other languages the preposition recruited for DOM is the continuant of Latin ad 'to').
Examples
(1) Romanian (Indo-European; Hill & Mardale 2019:14)
| pre | aces̩ti | boiari | i-au | băgat | în | temnit̩ă |
| TOP | these | lords | them.ACC=have.3PL | thrown | in | jail |
'These lords, they throw them in jail.'
(2) Romanian (Indo-European; Pensado 1995:219)
| Pe | mine | nu | m-a | văzut |
| ACC | 1SG.OBJ | NEG | 1SG-AUX | see.PTCPL |
‘He didn’t see me.’