languages Article A Note on Parameter Setting in Contact Situations Ricardo Etxepare 1, * and Ángel J. Gallego 2, * 1 Centre de Recherche sur la Langue et les Textes Basques (IKER), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 64100 Bayonne, France 2 Departamento de Filología Española, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Barcelona, Spain * Correspondence: r.etxepare@iker.cnrs.fr (R.E.); angel.gallego@uab.cat (Á.J.G.) Abstract: This paper revisits the study of linguistic variation within the Government and Binding approach to parameters, pointing out some limitations of parameter schemata in language contact scenarios. Discussion is focused on the possibility that clustering effects (the schemata themselves) are more complex than conventional approaches suggest. We outline an alternative approach, directly connected to Uriagereka’s typology or parameters, which is itself based on Chomsky’s Theory of Formal Languages. Empirically, we focus on language contact situations, as they provide cases where variation by contact operates under what we call an Excess of Stimulus, whereby access to the relevant data is overwhelming, but somehow ignored by learners. Keywords: agreement; Basque; dative; DOM; language contact; poverty of stimulus; Spanish 1. Introduction Minimalism has not provided any particularly noteworthy theoretical insight to the Principle and Parameters (PPT henceforth; cf. Chomsky 1986) approach to variation. It  has, however, added two important pieces to that more general puzzle. On the one hand,  the post-GB literature has questioned the validity of the empirical correlations (so-called Citation: Etxepare, Ricardo, and “parameter clusters”; cf. Biberauer and Roberts 2015) that are supposed to obtain after a Ángel J. Gallego. 2022. A Note on given parameter is set (cf. Newmeyer 2004; Roberts and Holmberg 2005; D’Alessandro Parameter Setting in Contact 2014; among others). On the other, it allowed one to ask why linguistic variation exists and Situations. Languages 7: 34. https:// how it can meet interface conditions and non-linguistic efficiency principles (Chomsky doi.org/10.3390/languages7010034 2005; Berwick and Chomsky 2011; Gallego 2011). Academic Editors: Juana M. Liceras This paper focuses on a particular aspect of Parameter Theory (the typology of param- and Raquel Fernández Fuertes eters) by relating it to a well-defined theory of formal grammars and its relation to what probably is the conceptual hallmark of the generative approach: the Poverty of Stimulus Received: 31 January 2021 Accepted: 14 September 2021 (PoS; cf. Chomsky 1986). We would like to approach this connection by concentrating on Published: 14 February 2022 language contact phenomena, for they provide for obvious PoS situations in a somewhat paradoxical way: they are characterized by what we may call an Excess of Stimulus (EoS), Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral in which access to the relevant data is rich, but somehow ignored by learners. Our goal is with regard to jurisdictional claims in to show that this is not directly expected under customary assumptions, and to suggest published maps and institutional affil- that an alternative approach (whatever that may be, although we assume Uriagereka’s 2007 iations. proposal) is necessary. Discussion is divided as follows: Sections 2 and 3 briefly summarize the Government and Binding based approach to parameters, coupled with the discussion in Uriagereka Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. (2007, 2008); in Section 4, we see possible ways to explore Uriagereka’s (2007, 2008) correla- Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. tions; Section 5 is the core of the paper, as it discusses DOM in Spanish and Basque, and This article is an open access article how the contact with these languages yields selective adoption of DOM (by the Basque distributed under the terms and spoken in the Iberian peninsula); Section 6 offers a quick summary of the paper. conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// 2. GB-Rooted Approaches to Linguistic Parameters creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ Language variation has been the focus of much research and discussion for the last 4.0/). few decades, the pendulum swinging from structuralist-rooted perspectives arguing that Languages 2022, 7, 34. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010034 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages Languages 2021, 6, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 17 Languages 2022, 7, 34 2 of 16 2. GB-Rooted Approaches to Linguistic Parameters Language variation has been the focus of much research and discussion for the last few“(l)anguages decades, the can differ from pendulum each from swinging otherstructuralist-rooted without limit and in unpredictable perspectives ways” arguing that(Joos 1957, p. 96)can “(l)anguages or differ takingfrom speech to be each “a human other without activity that in limit and varies without assignable unpredictable limit as ways” (Joos wep.pass 1957, from 96) or social taking grouptotobesocial speech group” “a human (Sapir that activity 1921,varies p. 2) to formalassignable without models within limit the Chomskyan paradigm, based on the much less patent argument that as we pass from social group to social group” (Sapir 1921, p. 2) to formal models within syntactic structure the must be, in some Chomskyan core sense, paradigm, baseduniversal. on the muchThis less quasi paradox patent has notthat argument been resolvedstruc- syntactic yet, and ture must be, in some core sense, universal. This quasi paradox has not been resolved yet, or, even staunch generativists will admit that they cannot understand why languages differ andmore evenbasically, along which dimensions staunch generativists they they will admit that may. cannot understand why languages Within what Baker (2010) calls “formal generative differ or, more basically, along which dimensions they may. typology”, variation has been dealt with invoking the notion of parameter, Within what Baker (2010) calls “formal generative typology”,asvariation originally conceived representing the dealt has been range of with invoking the notion of parameter, originally conceived as representing the range of of variation of universal principles, which Chomsky’s (1986) PPT invited us to conceive as a two-position variation of universalswitch. From principles, this perspective, which learners Chomsky’s (1986) have PPT to determine invited the position us to conceive of of the switch (“fix the parameter”) after exposure to the data until as a two-position switch. From this perspective, learners have to determine the position a steady state of a particular grammar is reached. Accordingly, languages can be seen as clusters (networks) of the switch (“fix the parameter”) after exposure to the data until a steady state of a par- of properties to be determined through observable input. Linguists have, in fact, put ticular grammar is reached. Accordingly, languages can be seen as clusters (networks) of forward different networks to capture the relevant groupings. Consider (1), taken from properties to be determined through observable input. Linguists have, in fact, put forward (Roberts and Holmberg 2010, p. 48) where F stands for “feature”, and the downward different networks to capture the relevant groupings. Consider (1), taken from Roberts options indicate the standard binary (YES/NO) path to fix points of language variation. and Holmberg 2010, p. 48) where F stands for “feature”, and the downward options indi- cate the (1) standard binary (YES/NO) path to fix points of language variation. (1) Each decision-point allegedly corresponds to a microparameter, whereas microparam- eter groupings count as macroparameters (cf. Baker 2008; Gallego 2011 and references Each decision-point allegedly corresponds to a microparameter, whereas micro- therein for discussion). parameter groupings count as macroparameters (cf. Baker 2008; Gallego 2011 and refer- ences 3. therein for discussion). Parameters, Markedness, and Grammar Types Uriagereka (2007, 2008) explicitly connects the different types of variation displayed 3. Parameters, Markedness, and Grammar Types by natural languages with the Theory of Formal Languages (TFL) put forward in Chomsky Uriagereka (1956), (2007, in which 2008)regular we find explicitly connects grammars (forthe different linearly typesdependencies), adjacent of variation displayed context-free by natural grammars languages with the Theory (for dependencies of Formal involving Languages phrase (TFL) markers), andput forward in Chomsky context-sensitive grammars (1956), (forin which we find long-distance regular grammars dependencies (forcollections requiring linearly adjacent dependencies), of phrase markers—orcontext- chains). In freeUriagereka grammars (for dependencies (2007, 2008) makesinvolving phrase the following markers), proposal withand context-sensitive respect to parametergram- types:1 mars (for long-distance dependencies requiring collections of phrase markers—or chains). (2) a. Microparameters → Markovian dependencies In Uriagereka (2007, 2008) makes the following proposal with respect to parameter types1: b. Sub-case parameters → context-sensitive dependencies (2) Core parameters → a.c.Microparameters →context-sensitive dependencies Markovian dependencies b. Sub-case parameters → context-sensitive dependencies c.Before being directly Core parameters concerned with matters → context-sensitive of variation and learnability, Chomsky dependencies (1956) put forward a theory of formal grammar types according to their complexity: finite- Languages 2022, 7, 34 3 of 16 state, context-free and context-sensitive grammars. Given an alphabet (a finite repository Languages 2021, 6, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 13 of terminal units TUs) and a Computational Procedure (CP), the types of objects that these grammars can generate are: lists of TUs (as in (3a)), combinations of TUs yielding abstract non-terminal units (“phrases”, signalled with square brackets in (3b)), and re-combinations terminal units (“phrases”, signalled withthat of phrases square are brackets in (3b)), pronounced and re-combinations in a position of phrases where they are that are in (“chains”, not interpreted the discontinuous object in (3c)): pronounced in a position where they are not interpreted in (“chains”, the discontinuous object in (3c)): (3) (3) In Uriagereka (2007, 2008), this hierarchy of grammars is reinterpreted, suggesting that its types correspond to the different structure-building CPs of Chomsky (2004): External In Uriagereka (2007, 2008), this hierarchy of grammars is reinterpreted, suggesting that its types correspond to the Merge, Internal Merge, and Pair Merge. So, roughly, Uriagereka (2007, 2008) defends the different structure-building CPs of Chomsky correlations (2004): External Merge, Internal Merge, and Pair Merge. So, roughly, in (4): Uriagereka (2007, 2008) defends (4) the correlations Grammar type →inFormal (4): object (operation type) (cf. Chomsky 1956, 2004) a. Type 1: Context-sensitive grammars → Chains (Internal Merge) (4) Grammar b. type →2:Formal Type objectgrammars Context-free (operation type) (cf. → Phrases Chomsky (External 1956, 2004) Merge) c. Type 3: Finite-state grammars → Lists (Pair-Merge) a. Type 1: Context-sensitive grammars → Chains (Internal Merge) Theb.key Type 2: Context-free property distinguishing the → grammars Phrases types (External isMerge) of grammars memory, which should be understood as related to the system’s resources—the CPs c. Type 3: Finite-state grammars → Lists (Pair-Merge) themselves. Uriagereka (2007, 2008) argues that the operations instantiating grammar types 1 and 2 correspond to Internal Merge (Move, in earlier formulations) and External Merge respectively. Type 4. Language Variation and Parameter Types above) corresponds to the Turing Machine and is therefore outside of 0 (not represented natural languages. Type 3 cannot be outside too, though, since the CH has an implicational nature (i.e., more complex levels presuppose simpler ones). The basic property of type 3 As noted, Uriagereka (2007, 2008) concernsargues for a restrictions: memory three-way classification of parameters, it can only operate aimed at correlating with immediately with the as adjacent elements, CH and a markedness ranking: (i) peripheral, happens (ii) of in the case sub-case and (iii) Markovian core parameters, illustrated in (5), (6) and (7) chains. below. This provides a falsifiable theory of parameter types that echoes that of operations and grammars. More than that, it provides us with a complexity-based ranking of phenomena, which will be crucial for the point we want to make in this note. (5) a. I wonder [ what you (S) said (V) ] b. I wonder 4. Language Variation and Parameter Types [ what said (V) you (S) ] As noted, Uriagereka (2007, 2008) argues for a three-way classification of parameters, aimed at correlating with the CH and a markedness ranking: (i) peripheral, (ii) sub-case and (iii) core parameters, illustrated in (5), (6) and (7) below. As noted, Uriagereka (2007, 2008) (5) a.argues for[ awhat I wonder three-way classification you (S) said (V) ] of parameters, aimed at correlating with the b. I wonder [ what said (V) you (S) ] CH and a markedness ranking: (i) peripheral, (ii) sub-case and (iii) core parameters, illustrated in (5), (6) and (7) (6) a. Yo (la) estoy viendo a Maria (Spanish) below. I CL-her am seeing ACC Maria ‘I am seeing her Maria’ (6) a. b.Yo Yo(la) (*l’) estoy estic viendoveient laa MariaMaria (Spanish) (Catalan) I CL-her am seeing the Maria I CL-her amMaria’seeing ‘I am seeing her ACC Maria (7) a. ∅ Maite ∅ nuen ‘I am seeing her Maria’ (Basque) loved 1.sg-AUX-3.sg b. Yo (*l’) estic veient la Maria (Catalan) ‘I loved it’ I b.CL-her I her am seeingamto/theseeing the*(her)Maria Maria b. *(I) love ‘I am seeing her Maria’ The idea behind the parameter types above is that they are based on the kind of (7) a.phenomena ∅ Maite they nuenfrom more to less detectable. Borrowing ∅ cover, (Basque) standard logic terminology, loved 1.sg-AUX-3.sg ‘I loved it’ b. I her am seeing to/the Maria b. *(I) love *(her) Languages 2021, 6, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 13 Languages 2022, 7, 34 4 of 16 The idea behind the parameter types above is that they are based on the kind of phenomena they cover, from more to westandard less detectable. Borrowing could saylogic thatterminology, parameters are wefirst, couldsecond say thatand third-order, parameters areaccording to the first, second andcomplexity third-order, of the objects they operate on: terminal elements (analogy based changes implying easily according to the complexity of the objects detectable they changes, word order operate on: liketerminal elements subject–verb (analogy adjacency in based changes (5)), phrases implying (clitic easily doubling detectable word order changes, phenomenalike subject–verb under a “Bigadjacency in (5)),and DP” approach), phrases (clitic chains doubling phenomena (Probe–Goal dependencies under a “Big affecting functional categories, like polysynthesis; cf. Baker 2001). This three-way DP” approach), and chains (Probe–Goal dependencies affecting functional categories, like polysynthesis; cf. Bakerclassification, ranked from more to less accessible to learners is depicted in (8): 2001). This three-way classification, ranked from more to less accessible to learners is depicted in (8): (8) (8) Given these correlations, we should further expect second and third-order parameters 5. Discussion to instantiate networks more complex than those in (1). We think that contact-induced grammatical variation can illustrate the increasing complexity that those networks may have. We concentrate on the relevance of contact-induced change as a potential source To see where these ideasoflead, let us consider reflection their potential on the nature application. of parameters and asFor concreteness, a potential fieldwe focus on of development on our Basque/Spanish/French contact. In particular, we concentrate on two types of contact-induced change that result thinking about the nature of parameter systems, their connection to complexity, andin to unexpected learning situations, not only because they have not been discussed in the parameter networks of increasing complexity. The first one corresponds to wh-movement in Basque in contact with literature, but because the current approach to parameters does not even allow to say French. The second one something correspondsabout to thethem. development of DOM in Basque in contact with Spanish. 5.1. Basque—French Contact Situations 5. Discussion To see where these ideas lead, let us consider their potential application. For concrete- ness, wethe The first case is represented by focus on Basque/Spanish/French development of in-situ questionscontact. In particular, in Labourdin Basque,we concentrate a variety on two of Basque in types of contact-induced change that result in parameter networks of increasing complexity. contact with French. As shown recently by Duguine and Irurtzun (2014), young speakers of Basque in contact with The first one corresponds to wh-movement in Basque in contact with French. The second French have developed onethe possibility corresponds of to leaving the wh-phrase the development in-situ, of DOM inan optioninthat Basque is notwith contact available otherwise in Spanish. Basque, but is possible in French (Obenauer 1994). Thus, young labourdin speakers can either leave the wh-phrase 5.1. Basque—French Contact Situations in-situ (9a, keeping the basic SOV order), or move it to the front of the sentence, triggering verb movement into the The first case is represented by the development of in-situ questions in Labourdin left periphery (Ortiz de Basque, Urbina 1989). In the a variety latter case, of Basque the syntactic in contact distribution with French. of the recently As shown wh-phrasebyparallels Duguinefocused and constituents in Basque (9c): Irurtzun (2014), young speakers of Basque in contact with French have developed the possibility of leaving the wh-phrase in-situ, an option that is not available otherwise in (9) Basque, a. but isNork possible inliburua French (Obenauer erosi 1994). Thus, du ?young labourdin speakers can (In-situ) either leave the wh-phrase in-situ (9a, keeping the basic SOV order), or move it to the front who.ERG book.the bought has of the sentence, triggering verb movement into the left periphery (Ortiz de Urbina 1989). In “Who of the latter case, the syntactic distribution bought the book?” the wh-phrase parallels focused constituents in b. Basque (9c): Nork erosi du liburua ? (9) who.ERG liburua a. Nork bought erosi has du book.the ? (In-situ) who.ERG book.the bought has “Who bought the book ?” “Who bought the book?” c. b. NorkJonek erosi erosi du du liburualiburua ? Jon.ERG who.ERG bought bought has has book.the book.the “Who bought the book ?” c. Jonek erosi “It is Jon who du has bought the book” liburua Jon.ERG bought has book.the The nature of the parameter boils“Itdown is Jonto thehas who possibility that bought the the wh-feature is selected by a focus book” feature (which triggers displacement) or not.The Asnature such, itofqualifies as a subcase parameter (8b above): the parameter boils down to the possibility that the wh-feature is selected by a focus feature (which triggers displacement) or not. As such, it qualifies as a subcase parameter (8b above): involve the same underlying mechanism. The literature has argued that DOM can be an- alyzed in two ways, one involving a context-sensitive dependency (a chain, as in clitic climbing, see Section 5.6), the other involving a non-context-sensitive one, as everything merely depends on the lexical properties of an NP (the [+human], [+animate] or [+definite] features). It is not that we have to choose: both strategies may be at stake, languages pick- Languages 2022, 7, 34 ing one over the other, probably on the basis of related factors. A way to decide whether 5 of 16 DOM involves a context-sensitive procedure or not is precisely by checking those related factors: clitic doubling, clitic climbing, and leísmo. (10)Thea.second [FocPfactor F [WhPconcerns Wh . . . ] ] the(General way parameters are determined/fixed. Basque, including Labourdin) More particu- b. [ larly, just likeWhP Wh . . . ] ] (Only Labourdin Basque) some variants of DOM itself (a descriptive label that may cloud different grammatical processes) can be more complex, one may expect that fixing the relevant pa- rameter The inclusion requires relation a more that arises complex between dependency, in(10a) and (10b) the sense of thefrom a structural Chomsky point Hierarchy. Asof weview is mapped pointed out in into (8), wea parameter assume that network that iscan parameters more complex expressed be formally than (1). There is no way as markovian to formally chains state the (adjacency), difference phrases betweenorgeneral (dominance) Basque and plus chains (dominance Labourdin Basque sisterhood). The inmore terms complex the relevant parameter, the harder it is to fix. If so, the kind of network necessaryin of a simple binary schema such as (1): Labourdin Basque includes the option available togeneral model Basque. The kind the constraints of parameter arising in Basque network that webewould DOM cannot need would represented be at(11a) by either leastorof the complexity level in (11b). (11a) (11b), repeated below as (37) for convenience: is the previous simple schemata, reproduced here: (11) a. Standard Parameter Network b. Parameter network of higher complexity (37) a. Standard Parameter Network b. Parameter network of higher complexity (11b) displays a network that is both left- and righ-recursive, creating (potentially) multiple learning (11/37b) wouldpaths—to correspond beto determined those casesby in linguistic which DOM input. The starting is optional point offor (a possibility the learning some path is speakers the question together «Is the wh-feature with ordinary absolutiveselected objects).by Thea focus feature ?», phenomenon with must the also left-hand make side representing, reference to other areas say, of the “yes” answer grammar, (with it with which itsinteracts. concomitant The further kind ofquestions), network weand the this need, righthand time, isside onerepresenting in which mutual the “no” answer. can dependencies Labourdin Basque be modelled: includes, we context-sensi- argue, both options. tive parameter schemata with long-distance dependencies involving chains, and thus points of the structure that can be far apart from each other, but still interacting. This much 5.2. DOM in Contact Situations is hinted at Gallego’s (2020) discussion of Romance parameters within the vP in Romance. In brief,The second such contact-induced an approach, change thatby if still formulated wemeans wouldoflike to address so-called within the parameter general schemata, outlook dependencies requires presented herebetween is the emergence positions of DOM that go in contactcontainment/dominance beyond situations. The topic is vast, de- and we pendency. can not expect to cover all the facts here. Simplifying things somewhat, DOM consists Notein adding that, some in this morphological picture, mark toobvious it is immediately the objectthatintypological order to make it “different” factors are rele- from another local argument (local = within the same domain). vant. Basque and Spanish are not part of the same family, but they behave partially Typically, this argument alikeis the subject. 2 Crucially, DOM seems to be sensitive to a series of semantic notions (Torrego when it comes to DOM. It is the same the other way around: Catalan and Spanish are both 1998; López Romance 2012, but siblings, and leísmo referencesseems therein), more prominently to be unavailable animacy: to the former. This simply tells us that learners (12) ignore these a. *Judas descriptiveJesús besó observations, which are(Spanish) relevant for classification purposes. Judas kissed Jesus Letb.us Judas sum up. This paper addressed besó a the question Jesús of what type of parameter net- works should Judas we expectkissed from parameters to Jesusat different levels in the hierarchy situated Chomsky (1956) “Judasputkissed Jesus” We proposed that parameters that invoke structural rela- forward. tions at different levels of complexity are also clustered in terms of increasingly complex As the reader can see, DOM resorts to a preposition (a = to) in Spanish, which is taken networks, and that simple schemata of the type in (1), recently proposed as a general for- to signal (differential) accusative, although it is morphologically dative. In the case of mat for parameter setting, are insufficient. This has interesting consequences not only for Basque, DOM involves both dative case-marking in the object and morphological indexing our understanding of language variation, but also for contact situations where evidence within the auxiliary, via agreement and a ditransitive root. This is the typical configuration is either weak (or null) but used for parameter-fixing or else strong but ignored. If that signals the presence of an indirect object. Consider (13), from Elordieta et al.’s (1995) Uriagereka (2007, 2008) is correct, we should expect that the second scenario involves sit- description of the dialect of Lekeitio: (13) Nik suri liburua emon dotzut (Basque) I.ERG you.DAT book.ABS given 3sgA.root.2sgD.1sgE “I gave you the book” (13) is an ordinary ditransitive sentence, one that involves a verb of transfer and a dative goal. The goal is marked with the dative case suffix –ri, and it is indexed in the auxiliary by both person agreement and the presence of a special root for ditransitive verbs. Transitive sentences in standard Basque present an Ergative–Absolutive pattern, illustrated Languages 2022, 7, 34 6 of 16 in (14a). Until recently, this has been the general pattern for all Basque varieties. In (14a), the direct object of ikusi (Eng. “see”) appears in the unmarked case form (absolutive). In present-day Basque, a number of varieties may present an Ergative–Dative pattern for transitive sentences (14b), particularly with 1st and 2nd person objects (example from Elordieta et al. 1995): (14) a. Nik su ikusi sattut (ERG-ABS) (Basque) I.ERG you.ABS seen 2sA.root.1sE “I’ve seen you” b. Nik suri ikusi dotzut (ERG-DAT) I.ERG you.DAT seen 3sgA.root.2sgD.1sgE “I’ve seen to you” (Eng. “I’ve seen you”) As the reader can check, both the case marking of the object (dative –ri) as well as the form of the auxiliary correspond to the ones we saw in (13) for dative goals. This is what we identify (following Mounole 2012; Fernández and Rezac 2016; Rodriguez-Ordoñez 2016, 2017; Odria 2017 among others) as DOM in Basque. Crucially, the phenomenon illustrated in (14b) only arises in those dialects that are in contact with Spanish (DOM does not exist at the other side of the Pyrenean border in the dialects in contact with French). In the relevant area, the phenomenon is widespread, and it is not recent: Mounole (2012) locates the first attestations of DOM in the second half of the XIXth century. Basque scholars have traditionally seen this phenomenon as resulting from contact with Spanish. Besides the geolinguistic distribution of the phenomenon, limited to the Spanish side of the border, other elements argue in favour of the idea that Basque DOM depends on contact: Austin (2006, 2015), who notes that DOM emerges at the same time (within the first three years of age) in Basque and Spanish during the course of early (simultaneous) bilingual acquisition3 also points out that Spanish language dominance plays a role in the frequency of the phenomenon. In the context of adult usage, Gómez Seibane (2012) also notes that speakers with Spanish as the dominant language use DOM more frequently. Rodriguez-Ordoñez (2017) points out that DOM may be triggered directly by the borrowing of Spanish verbs into Basque that allow a DOM frame. The phenomenon is highly stigmatized in formal contexts. Many Basque speakers can (and do) spontaneously alternate between DOM marking and a more traditional marking (ERG-ABS) depending on the context of use. Note that this leads us into the scenario that we schematize in (11), in which contact has as a consequence a more inclusive system that preserves options of the old one and opens up new setting paths. However, the most intriguing aspect of DOM in Basque is that the DOM system that Basque children acquire in the course of early bilingual acquisition is not symmetric for both languages (see Rodriguez-Ordoñez 2016, 2017; Odria 2017; Fernández and Rezac 2016; among others). In this sense, contact-induced DOM presents a more complex parameter setting scenario, for which a left- and right-recursive parameter schema such as (11b) does not seem to be sufficient. 5.3. Some Properties of Spanish Basque Before we go into the specifics of contact, a note is necessary concerning the relevant comparanda. The Spanish spoken in the Basque Country is known to possess a number of properties that singularizes it within the context of peninsular Spanish. Some of those properties, such as the existence of null objects where other varieties of Spanish require an accusative clitic (15a), or the presence of extended leísmo for animate direct objects (15b), can be observed in other contact varieties of Spanish (see Landa 1995; Gómez Seibane 2012; Klee and Lynch 2009). Languages 2022, 7, 34 7 of 16 (15) a. Los perros no podemos llevar nosotros a la playa (Basque Spanish) the dogs neg we.can take.inf ourselves to the beach “The dogs, we cannot take them to the beach ourselves” (from Landa 1993, p. 139) b. Le estoy buscando a María, pero no le encuentro cl.dat I.am looking for Maria but neg cl.dat I.find “I am looking for Maria, but I can’t find her” The latter phenomenon, so-called leísmo4 , is important for our purposes as it interacts with DOM. In the Spanish of the Basque Country, the same clitic (the dative one) doubles indirect objects in ditransitive sentences (Goals) and dative case-marked objects in transitive sentences (15b above). As the reader has probably noticed, this makes the Basque-Spanish system reminiscent of Basque DOM configurations, as it involves not only a special case marking on the object, but also a specific inflectional cue in the finite form (the clitic) that embraces both transitive and ditransitive predicates. We attribute special importance to the configurations that allow clitic doubling in Basque-Spanish, as they are the ones that approach Basque DOM most closely—a point that has been stressed previously, particularly by Rodriguez-Ordoñez (2017). According to Landa (1995), Basque Spanish DOM targets objects that are [+human, +/-masculine, +/-singular]. As the feature [+human] implies countability, and gender is not represented morphologically in the dative clitic in the Basque leista dialect, we can conclude that Basque Spanish DOM is driven by animacy. Landa notes, however, that clitic doubling in Basque Spanish introduces a further condition: it requires that the doubled argument be interpreted as “presuppositional” (Franco 1993; Landa 1995; Franco and Mejias-Bikandi 1999). Franco and Mejias-Bikandi (1999) point at semantic contrasts such as (16a-b) and (17a-b) (from Franco and Mejias-Bikandi 1999, p. 108) as evidence for this additional condition on doubling: (16) a. Le he visto a un marinero (Basque Spanish) cl.dat I.have seen prep a sailor “I have seen one of the sailors” b. He visto a un marinero I.have seen prep a sailor “I have seen a sailor/one of the sailors” (17) a. A quién le han Seleccionado ? (Basque Spanish) prep who cl.dat they.have selected “Who among them did they select ?” b. A quién han seleccionado ? prep who they.have selected “Who did they select/who among them did they select?” Franco and Mejias-Bikandi (1999) observe that whereas non-doubled indefinites can have either a specific or a non-specific reading (see also Leonetti 2012), clitic doubled indef- inites can only have a specific one. This reading, they argue, corresponds to the insertion of the variable introduced by the indefinite in the restriction of the event quantification, along the lines of Diesing’s (1992) Mapping Hypothesis. The clitic forces this reading by setting the scope position of the indefinite outside the vP, a position that maps into the restriction of the event quantification. The non-doubled indefinite on the other hand, can be mapped inside the vP or undergo covert raising, in which case it will end up in the same position of the clitic. Doubling thus has a semantic effect in the Spanish of the Basque Country. Basque Spanish DOM, coupled with clitic doubling, spans across a variety of non- definite objects, as long as they are human and can be interpreted specifically. The range of DOM in the Spanish of the Basque Country is thus relatively large and includes other types of indefinites besides the ones we have seen. For instance, the dative clitic can double cardinal quantifiers, as long as they are interpreted partitively. I reproduce here data from Paasch-Kaiser (2015), recorded in her monograph about the Spanish of Getxo, a biscayan town (Paasch-Kaiser 2015: 344): Languages 2022, 7, 34 8 of 16 (18) Les cogieron a todos y venga, todos a la carcel. cl.dat.pl they.caught prep all and come.on, all to the jail Y les fusilaron a un montón (Getxo Spanish) And cl.dat.pl they.shot prep a lot “They caught all of them, and come on, everyone to jail. And then they shot a lot (of them)” The data gathered in Getxo also include one instance of doubling with a generically interpreted indefinite (Paasch-Kaiser 2015: 343). We take generic indefinites to be mapped into the restriction of event quantification. (19) Hay gente que no le entiende a un bermeano (Getxo Spanish) there.is people that neg cl.dat.sg understands to a bermean ‘There’s people that cannot understand a typical speaker from Bermeo’ NPIs, as far as they are animate can also occur in a DOM frame with clitic doubling. In that case, they are interpreted as partitive: (20) No le he visto a nadie (Basque Spanish) neg cl I.have seen prep anyone “I didn’t see anyone (of them)” 5.4. Back to DOM The reason we go into so much detail about the Basque Spanish system is because, once the main lines of the Basque Spanish DOM are singled out, it turns out that it is significantly different from the Basque DOM system for which it has presumably served as a triggering or motivating factor. None of the specific indefinites that require DOM and clitic doubling in the Spanish of the Basque Country have DOM counterparts in Basque:5 (21) a. *Arrantzale bati ikusi diot. (Basque) fisherman one.dat seen aux “I have seen one (of the) fishermen” b. *Pilo bati fusilatu zioten. lot one.dat shot.past aux “They shot a lot of them” c. *Ez diot inori ikusi neg aux anyone.dat seen “I haven’t seen anyone” (22) provides a comparison of the DOM system in the Spanish of the Basque Country and in Basque, based on the mentioned literature.6 (22) DOM in Basque and the Spanish of the Basque Country Spanish Basque 1/2 person OK OK Human Definite OK %OK Human Specific OK * Human non-specific OK * Non-Human specific OK * The basic difference between the Basque system and the Spanish one can be defined broadly in terms of Aissen’s typology of One-Dimensional DOM versus Two-Dimensional DOM. In her comparative study of DOM, Aissen (2003) distinguishes languages in which a single semantic or deictic factor (say specificity or animacy) is relevant to the differential marking of the object (e.g., Turkish or Yiddish) and languages in which both are (like Spanish, Hindi or Persian). Basque DOM seems to be organized around the animacy scale. Languages 2022, 7, 34 9 of 16 Spanish, including the Spanish of the Basque Country, is organized on the basis of two jointly operating scales: animacy and specificity. Languages seem to restrict DOM to varying subsets of the feature combinations expressed in (22) (see Dalrymple and Nikolaeva 2011). From this point of view, there is nothing particularly noteworthy in the Basque cases, beyond what is due to account for this variation cross-linguistically. However, contact situations, particularly early bilingual acquisition, have the potential to underline specific inductive problems that L1 acquisition does not have to address. Why is it that the effects of contact stop at that precise point? Why is it not the case that contact-induced change goes all the way in Basque to mimic the Spanish system? Odria (2017) proposes that what unites the different instances of DOM in Basque (definite third person objects and first and second person pronominals) is the presence of D in the object, which encompasses both definites and person pronominals (see also Artiagoitia 2012). We adopt this view, but with a twist. We propose that what underlies Basque DOM is clitic climbing. It has been observed that person agreement in Basque seems to behave as a clitic (Etxepare 2003; Arregi and Nevins 2012). It is relevant, at this point, to consider Long Distance Agreement cases, which we do in the next subsection. 5.5. Long Distance Agreement in Basque In his work on Long Distance Agreement in Basque, Etxepare (2003, 2006, 2012) shows that LDA in person, unlike LDA in number, is restricted to restructuring contexts, those that in other languages constrain the domain of clitic climbing. LDA in Basque arises with two types of nominalized dependents, that we will call P-dependents and D-dependents. Under certain selecting predicates (typically modal, motion, and aspectual predicates as well as predicates expressing force-dynamic relations, in the sense of Talmy 2000), both person and number LDA are possible. The nominalized dependents that allow this are those that are headed by an aspectual postposition (P-dependents). Both person and number LDA are possible for instance with a control predicate like saiatu (Eng. “try”), a member of the set of lexical restructuring predicates cross-linguistically (Etxepare 2006, p. 304 for Basque; Wurmbrandt 2001) that in Basque selects a P-dependent: (23) a. Saiatuko gara [PostP [NomP _ zu jendartean aurkitze]]-n] try.prosp we.are you.abs among.the.people find.nom.post “We will try to find you among the people” b. Saiatuko zaitugu [PostP [NomP _ jendartean aurkitze]]-n]. (Basque) try.prosp we.are.you among.the.people find.nom.post “We will try to find you among the people” (23a) represents an ordinary control configuration with the verb saiatu «try», an intran- sitive verb that selects a nominalized clause with a postpositional head and only agrees with its single argument (the subject). (23b) represents an LDA structure, in which the matrix auxiliary shows agreement both with the subject and with the second person object in the embedded sentence. Person LDA is not possible outside the domain of prototypical restructuring predicates. Predicates that do not typically inform the category of restructuring verbs can also allow LDA in Basque. Those verbs select nominalized complements that are headed by the determiner –a (D-dependents), and they can include an overt subject.7 They seem to be structurally more complex (see Goenaga 1984; Artiagoitia 1994; San Martin 2004; Etxepare 2006). A verb such as gustatu (Eng. “like”) is a case in point. The verb gustatu (Eng. “like”) in Basque allows LDA in number but not LDA in person. Consider (24a-b): Languages 2022, 7, 34 10 of 16 (24) a. Joni [DetP [NomP liburu erromantikoak irakurtzea]]-a] gustatzen zaio Jon.dat book romantic.pl read.nom.det like.imp Present.3sA-3sD ‘Jon likes to read romantic books’ b. Joni [DetP [NomP liburu erromantikoak irakurtzea]]-a] gustatzen zaizkio Jon.dat book romantic.pl read.nom.det like.imp Present.3plA-3sD ‘Jon likes to read romantic books’ In (24a) the auxiliary shows default 3rd person singular agreement, the index that corresponds to a nominalized clause headed by a Determiner. In (24b), the auxiliary shows plural agreement, which can only come from the embedded object, romantic books. This is a case of number LDA. In the same configuration, person LDA is not available: (25) a. Joni [DetP [NomP zu inguruan ikuste]]-a] gustatzen zaio. Jon.dat you around see.nom.det like.imp Present.3sA-3sD “Jon likes to see you around” b. *Joni [DetP [NomP inguruan ikuste]]-a] gustatzen zatzaizkio. Jon.dat around see like.imp Present.2s-3sD Jon likes to read romantic books” In other words, only in those contexts that correspond cross-linguistically to restruc- turing contexts is person LDA allowed in Basque. (Absolutive) person agreement is manifested by affixes that look like the reduced forms of the corresponding full pronominals. Consider the following table, from Berro and Etxepare (2017): (26) Person agreement markers in Standard Basque: ABS ERG DAT ALLO 1 SG n- -t / -da- 2 SG -k / -n MASC/FEM h- -a- / -na- COLL 3 SG -o- 1 PL g- gu 2 SG z- zu NON-COLL 2 PL z- zu 3 PL The absolutive agreement markers in the table are reduced forms of the pronominal series. Thus, the agreement affix n-, for 1st person singular absolutive is a reduced form of the pronoun ni (Eng. “I”). The 2nd person singular agreement affixes for the colloquial and unmarked registers are h- and –z, which correspond to their pronominal counterparts hi and zu (Eng. “you”). First-person plural g- corresponds to the pronoun gu (Eng. “we”). There is no such relation in the (separate) paradigm of number agreement, which is completely unrelated to the pronominal system (see Berro and Etxepare 2017). The table in (26) shows that 3rd person singular in Basque does not have any indepen- dent exponent. Basque third-person pronominals are null, and they have no corresponding affix marking in the auxiliary. Only their plural counterparts have, in the separate number agreement paradigm. We predict that LDA in person, which we take to result from clitic climbing, will fail precisely for the third person singular, as there seems to be no reduced pronominal corresponding to that cell. This prediction is borne out. There is no counterpart of (23b) with third-person singular LDA. The resulting sentence would be (27), which is ungrammatical: Languages 2022, 7, 34 11 of 16 (27) *Saiatuko dugu [PostP [NomP jendartean aurkitze]]-n] (Basque) try.prosp we.are.him/her among.the.people find.nom.post ‘We will try to find him/her among the people’ The auxiliary in (27) is, like the auxiliary in (23b), a transitive auxiliary, one that is required when an object is present in the vP. However, the form does not license LDA. This syntactic gap goes hand-in-hand with the absence of pronominal morphology in the auxiliary. Etxepare (2012) argues that this provides evidence for the idea that person agreement morphology is derived via clitic climbing from argument positions. There is only one place in table (26) where the combination of the third person and singular is expressed by an overt exponent, and this is the dative slot. Furthermore, it has been plausibly claimed (by Gomez and Sainz 1995) that the exponent –o is actually a cognate of the proximate determiner –o. In present-day Basque the determiner –o includes the speaker within the denotatum of the article, as in (28): (28) Lagun-o-n ospakizun-a (Basque) friend-det-genitive celebration-det ‘The celebration of us friends’ Following the logic of the discussion, we may ask whether the Basque dative agree- ment affix –o behaves on a par with person agreement morphology, namely as a clitic. Note that if that were the case, we could circumscribe DOM in Basque to those cases in which clitic climbing is possible. Can we show that dative agreement is an instance of clitic climbing in Basque? What we need to examine is whether LDA with datives behaves on a par with Person LDA or not. That is, whether it is possible only in restructuring contexts. Etxepare (2003) already showed that dative 3rd person LDA is possible in restructuring contexts, so we can find pairs such as (29a,b), parallel to (23a,b) (from Etxepare 2003, p. 173): (29) a. Saiatuko gara [ zuri hori ematen] (Basque) try.prosp Present.1sA you.dat that.abs give.imp ‘We will try to give you that’ b. Saiatuko dizugu [ zuri hori ematen] try.prosp Present.2sD.1sE you.dat that.abs give.imp We will try to give you that’ In (29a), the verb saiatu (Eng. “try”) behaves as an intransitive verb, agreeing with its subject in person and number (1st person singular). In (29b) the auxiliary includes an agreement index for the embedded indirect object zuri (Eng. “to you”), besides the agreement index for the subject of try. The presence of the two agreement indexes in the verbal form forces the choice of a ditransitive auxiliary root. As we showed for person agreement indexes, LDA is not possible with 3rd person datives outside bona fide restruc- turing contexts. We cannot use the verb gustatu (Eng. “like”) to check this, as the verb like in Basque includes already a dative agreement index for its subject. We will use another non-restructuring predicate, aztertu (Eng. “examine, ponder”) to show that the restrictions on dative 3rd person singular agreement are those of person agreement. Consider in this regard the following contrast: (30) a. [DP zu salatzea ] aztertu dute. (Basque) you.abs accuse.nom.det consider.partc Present.3sA.3plE ‘They considered accusing you’ b. *[DP zu salatzea ] aztertu zaituzte. you.abs accuse.nom.det consider.partc Present.2sA.3plE ‘They considered accusing you’ (30a) involves a nominalized dependent headed by the determiner –a (a D-dependent). In this configuration, LDA in person is not possible. LDA in number, unlike LDA in person, is available: Languages 2022, 7, 34 12 of 16 (31) [DP Liburu batzuk saltzea] aztertu dituzte. (Basque) book some.abs sell.nom.det consider.partc Present.3plA.3plE ‘They considered selling some books’ Dative LDA (both in 3rd person sing and 3rd person pl) behaves as person agreement. It is not possible out of a D-dependent (32b-c): (32) a. [Legeari obeditzea] aztertu dute. law.det.dat obey.nom.det consider.partc Present.3sA-3plE ‘They considered obeying the law’ b. *[Legeari obeditzea] aztertu diote. law.det.dat obey.nom.det consider.partc Present.3sD-3plE ‘They considered obeying the law’ c. *[Legeei obeditzea] aztertu diete law.det.pl.dat obey.nom.det consider.partc Present.3plD-3plE ‘They considered obeying the law’ 5.6. Conclusions LDA phenomena in Basque support the idea that 3rd person dative agreement in Basque is an instance of person agreement, and that its occurrence as part of the finite auxiliary results from clitic climbing. If this is so, the parallelism between the scope of DOM in Basque and the scope of clitic climbing is complete. We can establish the following general constraint for DOM in Basque: (33) DOM in Basque is possible if and only if the object has a person feature We take (33) to follow from the conditions that allow clitic doubling (and climbing) in Basque. What the Basque bilingual learner is sensitive to is the conditions under which (34) is possible in Basque: (34) Merge a clitic to the object Note that (33) must be established as a principle governing the interaction of two grammatical systems. It can be seen as a restricting device that constrains access to relevant information: the triggering data from Spanish are only those that acomodate or are com- patible with a general property of the Basque grammar, namely the clitic status of person agreement. 6. Wrapping Up The previous section showed that language contact is selective. Despite robust evi- dence in favor of a potential parametric contact-based change, a given language ignores such evidence, sometimes totally, sometimes partially. A similar outcome obtains in other contact scenarios (more dramatically): Catalonia Spanish is leísta and, just like standard Spanish, uses clitics with dative morphology to replace masculine DOs, as shown in (35a,b): (35a) is the standard use of an accusative pronoun for a masculine DO clitic, whereas (35b) is an instance of leísmo. (35) a. María lo saludó ((Catalonia) Spanish) Maria CL-masc.sg.acc greeted ‘María greeted him’ b. María le saludó ((Catalonia) Spanish) Maria CL-masc.sg.dat greeted ‘María greeted him’ Crucially, no variety of Catalan displays this phenomenon. Differently put, there is no (36) in any Catalan variety whatsoever. The fact is remarkable, given that (35) and (36) represent judgments of the same speakers. Languages 2022, 7, 34 13 of 16 (36) *La Maria li va saludar (Catalan) the Maria CL-masc.sg.dat aux-3.sg greeted ‘Maria greeted him’ Somehow, and although the evidence for leísmo is overwhelming (it is, in our terms, an EoS situation, as (35b) is actually preferred over (35a)), Catalan ignores it. Let us call this the failed generalization problem of contact-induced change. The cases of Basque and Catalan we have just mentioned are the flipside of a standard PoS situation. In PoS scenarios, the grammatical change induced by contact is either null or clearly underdetermined by the data available. In EoS, the evidence is not only not null: it is empirically robust, in a systematic way, but for some reason, it does not take. How is this possible? We submit that the ultimate reason lies in two factors. One is the phenomenon itself (DOM), which may underlie different scaffoldings. To be specific, what we call “DOM” may be deployed through different strategies crosslinguistically. Languages 2021, 6, x FOR PEER REVIEW We have seen this with Spanish and Basque, for only the latter involves clitic climbing 5 of 17 (a context-sensitive dependency), hence its person restricted distribution. In the case of Spanish, where DOM is generalized, the facts are different, which indicate that this DOM may not involve the same underlying mechanism. The literature has argued that DOM can c. Jonek erosi du liburua be analyzed in two ways, one involving a context-sensitive dependency (a chain, as in clitic Jon.ERG bought has book.the climbing, see Section 5.6), the other involving a non-context-sensitive one, as everything “It isdepends merely Jon whoon has thebought lexical the book” of an NP (the [+human], [+animate] or [+definite] properties features). It is not that we have to choose: both strategies may be at stake, languages picking The over one naturetheofother, the parameter probably on boils the down basis oftorelated the possibility factors. Athat waythe to wh-feature decide whetheris se-DOM lected by a focus feature (which triggers displacement) or not. As such, involves a context-sensitive procedure or not is precisely by checking those related it qualifies asfactors: a subcase parameter (8b above): clitic doubling, clitic climbing, and leísmo. The second factor concerns the way parameters are determined/fixed. More partic- (10)ularly, a. [FocP just F [WhP like someWh…] ] of DOM variants (General Basque, itself (a including descriptive labelLabourdin) that may cloud different b. [ WhP Wh…] ] (Only Labourdin Basque) grammatical processes) can be more complex, one may expect that fixing the relevant parameter requires a more complex dependency, in the sense of the Chomsky Hierarchy. As Thepointed we inclusion outrelation in (8), wethat arises that assume between (10a) and parameters can (10b) from aexpressed be formally structuralas point of markovian viewchains is mapped into a parameter network that is more complex than (1). (adjacency), phrases (dominance) or chains (dominance plus sisterhood). The moreThere is no way to formally complex state the the difference relevant between parameter, the general harder itBasque is to fix.and Labourdin If so, the kind Basque in terms of network necessary of a simple binary schema such as (1): Labourdin Basque includes the to model the constraints arising in Basque DOM cannot be represented by either (11a) option available in or general Basque. The kind of parameter (11b), repeated below as (37) for convenience:network that we would need would be at least of the complexity level in (11b). (11a) is the previous simple schemata, reproduced here: (37) a. Standard Parameter Network b. Parameter network of higher complexity (11) a. Standard Parameter Network b. Parameter network of higher complexity (11/37b) would correspond to those cases in which DOM is optional (a possibility (11b) for displays some a network speakers togetherthat is ordinary with both left-absolutive and righ-recursive, objects). Thecreating (potentially) phenomenon must also multiple makelearning reference paths—to be determined to other areas of grammar,bywith linguistic whichinput. The starting it interacts. The kindpoint of the we of network learning need,path thisistime, the question «Is themutual is one in which wh-feature selected by dependencies can a be focus feature context-sensitive modelled: ?», with the parameter left-hand schemata withsay, side representing, long-distance the “yes” dependencies answer (with involving chains, further its concomitant and thusques- points of theand tions), structure that canside the righthand be far apart from each representing other, the “no” but stillLabourdin answer. interacting. This much Basque is hinted includes, at Gallego’s we argue, (2020) discussion of Romance parameters within the vP in Romance. In brief, both options. such an approach, if still formulated by means of so-called parameter schemata, requires dependencies 5.2. DOM in Contactbetween positions that go beyond containment/dominance dependency. Situations The second contact-induced change that we would like to address within the general outlook presented here is the emergence of DOM in contact situations. The topic is vast, and we can not expect to cover all the facts here. Simplifying things somewhat, DOM consists in adding some morphological mark to the object in order to make it “different” from another local argument (local = within the same domain). Typically, this argument 2 Languages 2022, 7, 34 14 of 16 Note that, in this picture, it is immediately obvious that typological factors are relevant. Basque and Spanish are not part of the same family, but they behave partially alike when it comes to DOM. It is the same the other way around: Catalan and Spanish are both Romance siblings, but leísmo seems to be unavailable to the former. This simply tells us that learners ignore these descriptive observations, which are relevant for classification purposes. Let us sum up. This paper addressed the question of what type of parameter networks should we expect from parameters situated at different levels in the hierarchy Chomsky (1956) put forward. We proposed that parameters that invoke structural relations at different levels of complexity are also clustered in terms of increasingly complex networks, and that simple schemata of the type in (1), recently proposed as a general format for parameter setting, are insufficient. This has interesting consequences not only for our understanding of language variation, but also for contact situations where evidence is either weak (or null) but used for parameter-fixing or else strong but ignored. If Uriagereka (2007, 2008) is correct, we should expect that the second scenario involves situations where, although the relevant evidence is massive, it actually involves a second/third-order type of data. The consequences of this approach cover a wide range of topics that have been explored by minimalism, and whose basic logic goes back to its earliest works, already back in the fifties. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, R.E. and Á.J.G.; formal analysis, R.E. and Á.J.G.; investi- gation, R.E. and Á.J.G.; resources, R.E. and Á.J.G.; writing—original draft preparation, R.E. and Á.J.G.; writing—review and editing, R.E. and Á.J.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding: This research has been supported by grants from the Ministerio de Economía y Com- petitividad (FFI2017-87140-C4-1-P), the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR634) [GALLEGO], and ANR-17-CE27-0011-BIM (Basque in the Making) [ETXEPARE]). We thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Usual disclaimers apply. Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable. Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable. Data Availability Statement: Data sharing not applicable. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Notes 1 More recent parameters of the “meso” and “nano” types, in Roberts’s (2019) sense, do not immediately fit in this classification. 2 The general idea is not without problems, particularly in the context of ergative languages, which have overt case marking for their transitive subjects and may nevertheless show DOM (cf. Hindi or Basque, Odria 2017). 3 This is also the age by which monolingual learners of Spanish acquire mastery of DOM (see Rodriguez-Mondoñedo 2008). 4 Leísmo can be characterized as the cliticization of a direct object by an etimologically dative clitic (we adopt this simple definition from Landa 1995, p. 147). See Fernandez-Ordoñez (1999) for an overview of the different leista clitic-systems in Peninsular Spanish and Colomina et al. (2019) for a comparative morphosyntactic analysis of the different systems. 5 We don’t include the equivalent of (19) with the verb entenitu (Eng. ‘understand’), whose only possible frame with an animate object in all Basque varieties is dative, independently of the contact language. It is possible that this frame is related to the presence of an underlying communication event that saturates the theme argument: ‘I understand him/her saying something’. 6 The star diacritic means the Basque equivalents of the Spanish DOM do not exist. The % diacritic in the case of third person definite human objects is meant to convey the fact that comparatively, it is less frequent than 1st and 2nd person DOM. It has been claimed that in certain DOM varieties only 1st and 2nd person DOM is possible (see Fernández and Rezac 2016). DOM with definite third person objects however is well attested in other areas (Gernika Basque, Rodriguez-Ordoñez 2017), although it is less systematic than first or second person DOM. This leads us again to the parametric system in (11b). Issues of normativity may exert an influence on the acceptance of third person DOM in Basque speakers (Rodriguez, p.c). We include third person DOM within the scope of our discussion. 7 When the nominalized dependent includes an overt subject it is interpreted as obviative with respect to the matrix subject. D-headed nominalized dependents selected by modal predicates freely alternate with finite dependents in the subjunctive mood in Basque, unlike P-headed ones. Languages 2022, 7, 34 15 of 16 References Aissen, Judith. 2003. Differential Object Marking: Iconicity VS. Economy. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21: 435–83. [CrossRef] Arregi, Karlos, and Andrew Nevins. 2012. Morphotactics. Basque Auxiliaries and the Structure of Spell Out. 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