Commonalities and differences between differential object marking and indexing (Zurich: University of Zurich)

This working paper discusses differential object marking (= flagging) (DOM) and differential object indexing (DOI) from a broad cross-linguistic perspective and from the perspective of two languages of Nepal, Nepali and Chintang, and it finds that "contrary to what has been assumed in the literature, DOM and DOI systems do not primarily arise from the need to distinguish between the two arguments of a transitive clause or to indicate a high degree of animacy or affectedness of the P referent per se. Rather, they reflect the special status of certain Ps in discourse.