Clitics on the Move: From Dependent Marking to Split Marking

This paper examines differential object marking (DOM) in non-standard Limeno Spanish contact varieties (LSCV). It explores the multiple effects of DOM (Aissen 2003) in LSCV, more specifically its correlation with patterns of information packaging with respect to secondary topics (Dalrymple and Nikolaeva 2007) and transitivity marking (Alsina 1996, 2001, Andrews 2007). Starting with the fact that Spanish already shows mixed marking, it argues that in non-standard varieties grammaticized non-agreeing object clitics promote split marking even further, suggesting a typological new development through a new accusative case marker (Bossong 1991, 2003, Company 2001).