Argument Strength and Differential Case Marking: Some Evidence from Hawrami

Differential Case Marking (DCM) refers to a situation in which only some nominals with a specific grammatical function are overtly case-marked and others remain unmarked. This phenomenon is attested in both Accusative and Ergative languages; in the former set of languages, DCM gives rise to Differential Object Marking (DOM) and in the latter set of languages it causes Differential Subject Marking (DSM) Among different approaches that have been proposed for accounting for DOM and DSM is that of De Hoop and Narasimhan (2005, 2008). They propose a model where both DOM and DSM are associated with the notion of the argument strength. The present paper seeks to use the notion of argument strength to account for patterns of DCM in Hawrami and by doing so, lend more empirical support to De Hoop and Narasimhan's model.
Two distinct kinds of DCM in Hawrami are investigated: the overt marking of definite direct objects in the accusative construction, and the oblique marking of certain kinds of Agent in pragmatically-marked transitive clauses in the past tenses. Both De Hoop and Narashiman's notion of DCM, and Hopper and Thompson's notion of graded transitivity are invoked to explain the alternations concerned.