Differential Object Marking in Udmurt approached by two methodologies: Elicitation vs. corpus analysis

Natalia Serdobolskaya
Institute of Linguistics RAS / Pushkin State Russian Language Institute

Abstract. Elicitation sessions in Beserman Udmurt show the relevance of referential properties of the DO for the choice of its marking; however, for Standard Udmurt animacy has been claimed to play a more significant role. This study involves a corpus analysis of Beserman Udmurt (10 539 sentences, 2187 DOs), which permits to establish the exact rank of each value of both parameters. For animates, the use of the accusative is expanded onto indefinite/non-specific DOs, excluding some lexical classes; for inanimates, its use is shifted from definite DOs to definite and “heavy” DOs.

Keywords: differential object marking, animacy, definiteness, accusative, possessive, Udmurt, Beserman

For citation: Serdobolskaya N. Differential object marking in Udmurt approached by two methodologies: Elicitation vs. corpus analysis. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2018. Vol. 1, iss. 1. Pp. 119–135.