Differential Object Marking in Romanian and Spanish: A contrastive analysis between differentially marked and unmarked direct objects

This paper discusses some aspects related to the syntax and semantics of Romanian direct objects (DOs) from a comparative stance with their Spanish counterparts. Spanish and Romanian differentially object marked DOs (DOMed DOs) function as KPs and may have a specific or a wide scope reading, they are disallowed in contexts requiring property denoting nominals and allowed in contexts necessitating nominals with ‘real argumenthood’ i.e., denoting entities or generalized quantifiers. The two languages differ with respect to unmarked DOs (which generally have a DP status): these pattern with DOMed DOs in Romanian. Spanish unmarked DOs, on the other hand, never show a specific or wide scope interpretation, they are not allowed in contexts which require entity denoting nominals but are suitable for contexts where property denoting expressions are required. We posit that the parameter differentiating between Romanian and Spanish concerns the division these languages make regarding DO types: while Spanish draws a line between KPs on the one hand and DPs and NPs/NumPs on the other, the relevant cut-off point in Romanian is that between KPs and DPs on the one hand and NPs/NumPs on the other. An analysis is proposed for Romanian, starting from these observations and building on López (2012)’s analysis for Spanish.


Introduction
The aim of this paper is twofold: to investigate the behaviour of Romanian direct objects (DOs) from a comparative perspective with their counterparts in Spanish and to propose a tentative analysis of Romanian DOs by parametrizing the account put forth in López (2012) for Spanish DOs. It will be shown that while differentially object marked DOs (DOMed DOs) pattern similarly in both languages, are able to exhibit a specific interpretation, outscope other scope bearing expressions and occur in a number of contexts selecting only DPs possessing real argumenthood,1 unmarked DOs differ with respect to these properties in the two languages. Thus, Spanish unmarked DOs pattern with bare nominals in that they read unambiguously non-specifically, never outscope other scope bearing expressions and may be only employed in contexts requiring property-denoting nominals. Romanian unmarked DOs, on the other hand, seem to be able to have the same distribution and acquire the same readings as DOMed variants: they may read specifically and have wide scope interpretations and may also occur in contexts restricted to nominals possessing real argumenthood.
As it seems, Spanish draws a clear-cut distinction between marked DOs on the one hand and unmarked DOs and bare nominals on the other, whereas Romanian groups marked and unmarked DOs together and distinguishes between these and bare nominals. Given these observations, DOMed DOs will be analyzed as KPs on a par with their Spanish counterparts along the lines of López (2012): they will be argued to move into an intermediary position between v and V for reasons of case. Aspects related to specificity, scope etc. are shown to derive from this position as a consequence of a special mode of semantic composition of the DO DP with the predicate.
Romanian unmarked DOs will be shown to differ from their Spanish counterparts exhibiting a twofold behaviour i.e., as real DPs and as NPs/NumPs: as DPs, they may have argumental status and behave on a par with marked DOs. On the other hand, they may undergo reanalysis to NP/NumP and pattern similarly to other property denoting nominals (e.g., bare plurals). In this latter case, they closely follow in the footsteps of Spanish unmarked DOs.
The article has the following structure: Section 2 brings forth some relevant semantic and syntactic aspects regarding indefinite DOs in Spanish and Roma-1 In line with López (2012), real arguments are nominals of the semantic type e or <<e,t>t>, which never denote properties and never incorporate into the V for case checking reasons. As will be seen, Spanish marked DOs have real argumenthood in this respect, while unmarked DOs are property denoting nominals which always check their case as a way of incorporation into the V. nian; Section 3 discusses the analysis proposed in López (2012) for Spanish DOs; in Section 4 we propose a parametrization of this analysis for Romanian; Section 5 contains the conclusions.

Spanish indefinite DOs
Spanish draws a clear-cut distinction between DOMed DOs on the one hand and unmarked DOs and bare nominals on the other with respect to a number of syntactic and semantic phenomena: DOMed DOs may exhibit a specific interpretation, outscope other scope bearing expressions, occur in certain contexts which exclude property denoting nominals and shun those contexts requiring property denoting nominals. 2 Unmarked DOs evince a different behaviour in that they never enable specific or wide scope readings, occur in contexts requiring property denoting nominals and get discarded from contexts eliciting real arguments (i.e., nominals denoting entities or generalized quantifiers). This section will extend upon this clear-cut distinction that Spanish seems to draw between DOMed DOs and their unmarked counterparts, making use of the data presented in López (2012). By drawing on this different behaviour, López (2012) offers an account for Spanish marked and unmarked DOs, which will be presented in section 3 and which will be further adapted for Romanian in the subsequent sections after a comprehensive discussion about the relevant differences holding between the DOs in the two languages.

Specificity
Spanish indefinite DOs may be introduced by the differential object marker a which seems to have an important interpretive import: marked DOs may acquire a specific reading, unmarked DOs may not do so.3 This is illustrated in (1) below, where the variant a un traductor de alemán refers to a specific translator that Mary is looking for, while in the unmarked variant Mary is simply looking for some non-specific individual who has the property of being a translator: (1) María busca a/Ø un traductor de alemán. Maria seeks dom/Ø a translator of German 'Maria is looking for a German translator. ' López (2012, 10) Expectedly, a modifier such as cierto ('a certain'), which has been shown to foreground an epistemically specific interpretation given that it forces the referent denoted by the indefinite DO to become fixed with respect to the speaker´s epistemic modal base, imposes the use of a. An unmarked indefinite is ungrammatical when preceded by cierto: (2) Juan buscó a/*Ø un cierto futbolista. Juan sought dom/*Ø a certain soccer player 'Juan looked for a certain soccer player. ' López (2012, 17) On the other hand, the free choice indefinite cualquiera ('any') drives DOMed DOs to becoming non-specific. In (3) below, a un futbolista cualquiera may only be interpreted non-specifically. As expected, the unmarked variant is also fine in this context: (3) Juan buscó a/Ø un futbolista cualquiera. Juan sought dom/Ø a soccer player any 'Juan looked for a soccer player, no matter who. ' López (2012, 17) 3 With respect to the type of specificity that marked indefinite DOs may evince, López argues in favour of epistemic and partitive specificity (Farkas 1999) disregarding other types of specificity e.g., specificity as referential anchoring . There is also a split between wide scope and epistemic specificity, which other studies have subsumed as types of specificity (consider Farkas' 1994 notion of scopal specificity). Furthermore, other studies have shown that partitives need not necessarily be specific (Kornfilt/von Heusinger 2008). In this article, we simply adopt the specificity distinctions endorsed by López in an attempt to capture a parallelism of the Spanish and Romanian data and do not engage in a discussion regarding specificity types.
Mood has also been proposed as a useful tool to tease a specific interpretation apart from a non-specific one (Rivero 1979). In (4) the DO una gestora ('a manager') has been modified by a relative clause whose predicate bears the subjunctive mood. As a consequence, the indefinite DP may only be interpreted as non-specific. Both marked and unmarked DOs may be used in this context. However, if the mood of the predicate in the relative clause modifying the DO is the indicative, the only available type of DO is a DOMed one and the only available interpretation is the specific one, as shown in (5) where the German speaking manager sought for by Mary is necessarily interpreted as specific: (4) María buscó a/Ø una gestora que hablara alemán. Maria sought dom/Ø a manager that spoke.subj German 'Maria was looking for a manager that spoke.subj German.' López (2012, 1) (5) María buscó a/*Ø una gestora que hablaba alemán. Maria sought dom/*Ø a manager that spoke.ind German 'Maria was looking for a manager that spoke.ind German. ' López (2012, 2) The subjunctive test may be further combined with un cierto or cualquiera: while un cierto needs to be combined with the indicative mood and a DOMed DO (6a), cualquiera imposes the use of the subjunctive and an unmarked DO (6b):

Scope
Besides showing a propensity for a specific interpretation, DOMed indefinites also seem to favour a wide scope reading when co-occurring with extensional quantifiers and various sentence operators. In (7a), a una mujer ('a woman') may outscope the universal QP todo hombre ('every man') enabling an interpretation according to which 'there was (at least) one woman such that every man loved one'. A narrow scope interpretation for the indefinite DO according to which 'each man loved a (possibly) different woman' remains an option. The same is at stake in (7b), with the DOMed DO allowing both a wide as well as a narrow scope reading with respect to the QP subject:  López (2012, 10) Marked indefinite DOs may also outscope negation. The unmarked indefinite only allows for a narrow scope interpretation: (9) a. Juan no amó a una mujer. Juan not loved dom a woman 'There was a woman such that Juan did not love.' * 'Juan did not love any woman.' ∃ >¬ and *¬ >∃ López (2012, 10) b. Juan no amó una mujer.
Juan not loved a woman * 'There was a woman such that Juan did not love' 'Juan did not love any woman.' * ∃ >¬ and ¬ >∃ López (2012, 10) Furthermore, Spanish unmarked indefinite DOs may not outscope the conditional operator. DOMed indefinites, on the other hand, may acquire wide scope with respect to the conditional: Thus, just like in the case of specific readings, the split between DOMed DOs and unmarked DOs also holds with respect to scope dependencies: while marked DPs may outscope other scope bearing expressions, unmarked correspondents only exhibit dependent readings.

Some contexts which prohibit the use of DOMed indefinite DOs
Bleam (2005) discusses a number of contexts where DOMed DOs are discarded as infelicitous. One such context is that of the existential haber ('have') and the possessor or relator tener ('have'), which only allow unmarked DOs.
Haber always selects unmarked indefinites, which are property denoting: DOMed DPs are disallowed from these contexts. Unmarked variants on the other hand, which are of type <e,t> are felicitous.
(11) En el patio hay *a/Ø un niño. in the yard exist *dom/Ø a boy 'There is a boy in the yard. ' López (2012, 20) Tener allows for both DOMed and unmarked DOs. A difference in interpretation is, however, at stake. Bleam (1999;2005) distinguishes between an individual level tener and a stage-level one. In (12a) tener functions as an individual level predicate and is the equivalent of own in (13a) in that the possession relationship is not associated with or restricted by a particular spatio-temporal location. In this particular context, the use of DOM is disallowed. (12b) on the other hand prompts the stage level reading and the use of a is permitted: In order to account for these facts, Bleam suggests that tener always selects a property-denoting expression. Nevertheless, in its stage-level use, tener takes a complement of type <s,t>, denoting a property over events, which syntactically amounts to a small clause containing the subject DP and a spatio-temporal predicate. In its individual-level interpretation, tener selects an <e,t> complement, denoting a property of individuals. This also accounts for the fact that in this latter use, the NP complement may never be definite (see Bleam 1999 for discussion): as known, definite descriptions semantically correspond to individual constants and are of type e.
In the stage-level use of tener, definite nominals are allowed and this is so due to the fact that the DP is not itself a complement of tener, but the subject of the small clause, which tener takes as its complement. As such, the DP subject occupies an argumental position.
The difference of behaviour between marked and unmarked DOs in these contexts thus suggests a difference of status: while DOMed DOs are true arguments of the verb, being able to occur in the stage-level use of tener, their unmarked correspondents do not have real argumenthood, being interpreted as property-denoting nominals and only co-occurring with the individual-level of tener. López (2012) identifies three special contexts where the use of DOM seems to be required in the absence of any semantic triggers such as specificity or scope. The obligatoriness of DOM in these contexts prompts López (2012) to propose that the marking mechanism is actually syntactically triggered.

Small clause complements
One context where the use of DOM is compulsory is that of small clause complements: in (14) un estudiante, the argument within the small clause complement is obligatorily DOMed; the unmarked variant is discarded as ungrammatical and so is the bare plural in (15): (14) Considero a/*Ø un estudiante inteligente. consider.I dom/*Ø a student intelligent 'I consider a student intelligent. ' López (2012, 10) (15) El profesor consideró a/*Ø estudiantes inteligentes. the professor considered dom/*Ø students intelligent 'The professor considered students intelligent. ' López (2012, 23) The fact that DOM has not been called for by any semantic trigger in this context is accounted for by examples such as (16) below where the argument of the small clause is an indefinite DP with a non-specific interpretation, given the use of the subjunctive in the modifying relative. The use of DOM is compulsory: (16) Juan no considera honrado a/*Ø un hombre que Juan not considers honest dom/*Ø a man that acepte sobornos accepts.subj bribes 'Juan does not consider honest a man that accepts bribes. ' López (2012, 25) Object control predicates The object of an object control predicate also requires the use of DOM: (17) Juan forzó a/*Ø un niño a hacer los deberes. Juan forced dom/*Ø a boy to do.inf the homework 'John forced a child to do his homework. ' López (2012, 25) Just as in the case of small clause complements, the use of DOM with object control predicates does not seem to be imposed by any semantic considerations: in (18) the DOMed DO has been modified by a relative clause whose predicate bears the subjunctive mood: (18) María forzaría a/*Ø una empleada que tuviera Maria force.cond dom/*Ø an employee that had.subj depresión a venir al trabajo. depression to come.inf to work 'Mary would force an employee who were depressed to come to work. ' López (2012, 25)

Clause union
A third syntactic context where DOM is required in Spanish is that provided by accusative affected arguments in clause union. In the causative construction presented under (19) below, the causee in the accusative is necessarily DOMed. An unmarked indefinite or a bare plural is out.  ' López (2012, 24) Again, DOM is not triggered by specificity as may be seen from (20) where the relative clause modifying the affectee contains the subjunctive mood.
(20) María hace quedarse en clase a/*Ø un niño que Maria does stay.inf in class dom/*Ø a boy that no haya terminado los deberes. no has.subj finished the homework. 'Maria makes a boy that has not finished the assignment stay in class. ' López (2012, 25) Such phenomena, where specificity or scope considerations play no role with respect to the requirement for the use of DOM prompt López (2012) to observe that the mechanism comes as a consequence of the suitable environmental conditions in which the DO may find itself and that scrambling represents a prerequisite for these conditions. DOM is thus argued to be the morphological expression of a syntactic configuration (López 2012, 28). Furthermore, the three contexts above seem to lead to the same conclusion as do the observations regarding DO behaviour with respect to specificity and scope dependencies: Spanish seems to draw a distinction between marked indefinite DOs on the one hand and unmarked indefinites and bare plurals on the other.
The syntactic and the semantic properties of these nominals seem to go hand in hand. Indeed, as will be seen in section 3: DOMed DOs are argued to function as KPs and to always leave their merge position, scrambling to a position outside the VP. By so doing, they check case against a functional projection (αP in López´ terms) and have access to a mode of semantic composition with their predicate which enables the specific/wide scope readings shown to be available for them.
Unmarked DOs and bare nominals, on the other hand, will be argued to stay within the VP and to incorporate into the predicate for case checking. As a consequence, they only get a non-specific/narrow scope interpretation.

Romanian indefinite DOs
Romanian has also been grouped with those languages allowing DOM and the same interpretive effects have been argued to arise as in the case of Spanish marked DOs (Dobrovie-Sorin 1994; Cornilescu 2000). The differential object marker in Romanian is pe, a derivative of the locative preposition p(r)e ('on'). Romanian DOM exhibits a further complication in that it is more often than not accompanied by Clitic Doubling (CD) and many linguists have argued that the two mechanisms actually pertain to the same phenomenon (Dobrovie-Sorin 1990;Gierling 1997;Tigău 2010;Chiriacescu/von Heusinger 2011a;2011b).
In the following subsections we focus on the same semantic and syntactic aspects discussed above for Spanish and show that Romanian patterns with Spanish up to a certain extent: while DOMed DOs behave on a par in the two languages, unmarked DOs exhibit different behaviours with respect to their (im) possibility to acquire specific and wide scope readings etc.

Specificity 4
One of the most widely discussed topics in relation to the behaviour of Romanian marked and unmarked DOs has been their ability to acquire a specific reading. Both DOMed as well as CDed+DOMed indefinite DOs have been argued to have a nonambiguous specific interpretation and Romanian linguists have different opinions as to which of the two mechanisms i.e., DOM or CD bears responsibility for this interpretation. Thus, Farkas (1987), Dobrovie-Sorin (1990, 388;1994, 234), Cornilescu (2000, 103) claim that the DOM marked DO induces specificity, while Steriade (1980), Dobrovie-Sorin (1990, 377;1994, 224), Gierling (1997, 72ss. a.o.) establish a correlation between specificity and clitic doubling. Tigău (2010), Chiriacescu/von Heusinger (2011a; 2011b) a.o. argue on the other hand that specificity is a joint effect of pe and CD.
Thus, in an example such as (21) below, Dobrovie-Sorin (1994) argues that pe disambiguates the interpretation of the indefinite DO towards a specific one: the indefinite in (21b) is claimed to only allow a non-specific interpretation, while the non-marked variant in (21a) is said to allow for both a non-specific and a specific reading: Note that Romanian unmarked DOs may also give rise to epistemically specific readings, unlike their Spanish counterparts. Consider (22), where an unmarked DO is allowed even if the only available interpretation is a specific one whereby the referent denoted by the indefinite DP is known to the speaker.
(22) Ieri am văzut pe/Ø un copil de-al meu în bibliotecă. yesterday have.I seen dom/Ø a child of mine in library 'Yesterday I saw a child of mine in the library.' Furthermore, Romanian allows both marked and unmarked DOs to co-occur with the equivalent of a certain, and to acquire a specific interpretation. In (23) both the DOMed and the unmarked variants of un fotbalist ('a soccer player') may be preceded by anumit ('a certain'). As discussed in 2.1.1, Spanish examples containing unmarked DOs are infelicitous when these co-occur with un cierto: (23) Ion caută pe/Ø un anumit fotbalist. John seeks dom/Ø a certain soccer player 'John is looking for a certain soccer player.' Just like their Spanish counterparts, DOMed indefinite DOs may combine with the free choice indefinite oarecare ('any'), blocking their specific interpretation. The same holds for unmarked indefinites: (24) Alege pe/Ø un coleg oarecare și roagă-l să te select dom/Ø a colleague any and ask-him.acc subj you.acc ajute. help.he 'Pick up any colleague and ask him to help you.' The mood of the predicate from within the relative clause modifying the indefinite DO has also been argued to be relevant with respect to specificity in the case of Romanian DOs. Thus, Farkas (1982, 109-130) and Dobrovie-Sorin (1994) argue that while the unmarked indefinite DO in (25a) may exhibit both a specific and a non-specific interpretation, the same DP in (25b) may only allow for a nonspecific reading on account of being modified by a relative clause whose predicate is in the subjunctive mood. On the other hand, the use of the indicative mood in (25c) forces a specific interpretation on the DO.  It thus seems that, just like with the Spanish data, the mood in the relative clause modifying an indefinite DO in Romanian has consequences on the specific/ non-specific reading of this DP. However, while Spanish DOs clearly split into unmarked variants, which may only be modified by relatives whose predicates are in the subjunctive, and marked ones allowing both moods in the modifying relative, Romanian does not draw such a clear-cut distinction as both marked and unmarked DOs occur within both types of contexts. This is shown in (26) where a relative clause with the predicate in the subjunctive mood may modify both the unmarked DO câțiva seminariști ('some tutors') in (26a) and its DOMed variant in (26b) on a non-specific interpretation; the CDed+DOMed variant is also possible as shown in (26c) Moreover, both marked and unmarked DOs may be modified by a relative clause in the indicative. The interpretation in this case is a specific one: câțiva seminariști students.the (them.cl.acc) search (dom) some tutors care le explică bine materia. who them.cl.dat explain well subject matter.the 'The students are looking for some tutors who explain the subject matter well to them.' Also, Romanian DOMed indefinite DOs may co-occur with the free choice indefinite oarecare ('any') thereby losing their specific interpretation. The same happens with unmarked indefinites: (28) Alege pe/Ø un coleg oarecare și roagă-l să select dom/Ø a colleague any and ask-him.acc subj te ajute. you.ACC help.he 'Pick up any colleague and ask him to help you.' When drawing together the subjunctive test and expressions such as oarecare ('any') or un anumit ('a certain'), the result is again somewhat different from Spanish with respect to the behaviour of unmarked indefinites: while DOMed DOs behave similarly to their DOMed counterparts in allowing co-occurence with the indicative and a certain, contrary to their Spanish counterparts, Romanian unmarked indefinites allow co-occurrence with the indicative and a certain (30b). Both marked and unmarked indefinites are felicitous in the context of oarecare and the subjunctive (29a). The combination between the subjunctive with a certain seems to be problematic both for marked and unmarked indefinites, as expected (30a). Finally oarecare and the indicative seem problematic together for marked and unmarked DOs (29b).
(29) a. Caut pe/Ø un student oarecare care să look.I dom/Ø a student any who subj vorbească bine englezește la clasă. speak well English in class 'I am looking for a (any) student who might speak English well.' b. ? Caut pe/Ø un student oarecare care vorbește look.I dom/Ø a student any who speaks bine englezește la clasă. well English in class 'I am looking for a (any) student who speaks English well.' (30) a. ? Caut pe/Ø un anumit student care să look.I dom/Ø a certain student who subj vorbească bine englezește la clasă. speak well English in class 'I am looking for a certain student who might speak English well.' b. Caut pe/Ø un anumit student care vorbește bine look.I dom/Ø a certain student who speaks well englezește la clasă. English in class 'I am looking for a (any) student who speaks English well in the class.' By drawing on the data presented in this section, we may conclude the following: unlike their Spanish counterparts, Romanian unmarked indefinite DOs have access to a specific interpretation. As such, these DPs may be used in the context of anumit ('a certain') or allow modification by relative clauses in the indicative mood. Romanian DOMed DOs on the other hand seem to lead to the same pattern of behaviour as their Spanish correspondents, allowing both a specific and a non-specific interpretation.

Scope 5
Similarly to the Spanish data, the relevant literature on Romanian DOs has claimed that DOMed variants favour a wide scope interpretation (Dobrovie-Sorin 1994;Tigău 2010). In this section we focus on the behaviour of marked and unmarked DOs in the contexts of extensional QPs and intensional operators. It will be shown that the same difference is at stake between Spanish and Romanian DOs as above: Spanish DOs differentiate themselves from their Romanian correspondents. Only marked DOs may acquire a wide scope reading in Spanish, while both marked and unmarked DOs may outscope other scope bearing expressions in the latter Romanian.
In (31)  John (her.acc) admires dom an actress Mary îl va certa. him.cl.acc will scold 'If John admires an actress, Mary will scold him.' ∃ > → and → > ∃ As it seems, Romanian data pattern with the Spanish ones only with regard to the marked DO: these DPs may outscope the negation or the conditional operator, the wide scope interpretation being actually favoured. Unmarked DOs may also do so, however, contrary to their Spanish correspondents.

The context of a avea ('to have') 6
The Romanian counterpart of the Spanish tener, a avea also allows for a stage level and an individual level reading, with the same restrictions as in Spanish: when functioning as an individual level predicate, a avea disallows the use of DOMed DOs (35a), while the stage level a avea allows for DOMed complements (35b) Thus, similarly to its Spanish counterpart tener, the individual-level a avea may only select a property-denoting complement, not allowing a DOMed DP as its complement, since such DPs are never property denoting. The complement of the stage-level a avea may be marked by pe because the stage-level a avea, denotes a property of events (type <s,t> and its complement is syntactically represented as a small clause containing a subject DP and a spatio-temporal predicate. As such, the subject DP may be of type e or <<e,t>t>, which allows the use of pe.7 Thus, pe marked DPs may never be used with individual-level a avea as it only selects property-denoting complements, but they may be used as complements of the stage level a avea as e or <<e,t>t> type DPs are allowed as subject of the small clause selected by this verb. In this respect we may view these data as an argument that DOMed nominals are not property denoting.

Some syntactic phenomena which do not involve scope or specificity 8
López (2012) includes Romanian among the languages that enforce DOM on small clause subjects, object control and causative-permissive structures, similarly to Spanish.

Small clause complements
Romanian patterns with Spanish up to a certain extent when it comes to the obligatoriness of DOM in small clause complements: while it is true that preference is given to the DOMed nominals, unmarked DOs are also possible. Romanian only discards bare nominals from this context:9 9 The use of unmarked indefinites within small clauses is broadly attested in the language. Here are some examples that came out as a result of a simple Google search: (1) a. Eu consider unii posesori de R1 și R6 cazuri speciale. I consider some owners of R1 and R6 cases special 'I consider some owners of R1 and R6 to be special cases.' (http://www.motociclism.ro/forum/index.php?/topic/747673-motocicleta-moarta-debatranete/page-3) b. Și eu consider multe fete de aici prietene. and I consider many girls from here friends 'I also consider many girls here as my friends.' (http://www.culinar.ro/forum/continut/pentru-cei-mici/26350/ingrediente-mai-multsau-mai-putin-nocive-ptr-copii/page-2) (39) a. (Îl) consider pe un student inteligent. (him.cl.acc) consider. I dom a student intelligent. 'I consider a student intelligent.' b. Consider un student inteligent.
consider.I a student intelligent c. *Consider studenți inteligenți.
consider.I students intelligent. 'I consider students intelligent.' Note further that both marked and unmarked indefinites are allowed as arguments in small clauses when modified by a relative containing a predicate in the subjunctive, with a preference for the unmarked variant: (40) Ion nu ar considera cinstit (pe) un politician care John not would consider honest (dom) a politician who să accepte mită de la alegători. subj accept bribe from electors 'John would not consider to be honest a politician who would accept bribes from the electors.'

Object control predicates
Just as in the case of small clause complements, Romanian differs from Spanish in that it allows both marked and unmarked DOs to surface as objects in control predicates. It is only bare nominals that are discarded from this context (42b):10 10 Consider also the examples below found on the internet: (1) Angajatorul a forțat un angajat să își dea demisia. Employer has forced an employee SUBJ REFL. resign 'The employer forced an employee to resign.' (https://www.avocatnet.ro/forum/discutie_593913/Poti-sa-demisionezi-si-fara-preaviz.html*1)

Clause union
Just as for Spanish, Romanian DOM is argued to also be obligatory in these contexts. This is, nevertheless, inaccurate as unmarked indefinites are actually considered acceptable: (43) Ion a lăsat un copil să joace Nintendo. John has let a child subj play Nintendo 'John let a child play Nintendo.' Note, however, that Romanian causative constructions actually amount to raising to object sentences and as such they are not relevant for the current discussion. In the causative-permissive structure, for instance, the use of DOMed and unmarked affectees is allowed, as well as that of bare plurals: 11 This example might be acceptable under a reading according to which one explains the more recent actions of the boss in questions along the lines of (1): ( The three contexts discussed in this section point to the same differences holding between Spanish and Romanian DOs: Romanian patterns with Spanish in allowing DOMed indefinite DOs in these configurations (and disallowing bare plurals). Nevertheless, Romanian also allows unmarked indefinites to occur in small clauses, clause union and object control configurations as opposed to Spanish.12

Conclusions
This section has compared Spanish and Romanian DOs with respect to a number of contexts. The following conclusions have been reached: Spanish and Romanian marked DOs pattern alike in allowing for a specific interpretation and a wide scope reading; the non-specific and the narrow scope interpretations remain an option with these DPs however.
The two languages differ with respect to the behaviour of unmarked DOs: while Spanish unmarked DOs always get interpreted non-specifically and may only exhibit a narrow scope reading when co-occurring with other scope bearing expressions, their Romanian counterparts pattern with their DOMed correspondents, allowing both specific as well as wide scope interpretations.
A further point of similarity between Romanian and Spanish marked DOs has to do with the occurrence of these DPs within the context of have: while this verb only enables co-occurrence with unmarked DOs in its individual level reading, marked DOs are allowed with its stage level variant. These restrictions show, in turn, that marked DOs have real argumenthood and never denote properties.
Finally, Spanish DOM seems to be syntactically triggered in three contexts: small clauses, object control and clause union in causative configurations. Again, Romanian differs in this respect: not only DOMed indefinites are allowed in these contexts, unmarked indefinites are also acceptable. Bare plurals, similarly to their counterparts in Spanish, are rejected from these configurations. Thus, while Spanish draws a line between DOMed objects on the one hand and unmarked and bare nominals on the other, Romanian seems to group marked and unmarked objects together when it comes to the aforementioned contexts and to distinguish between these DPs on the one hand and bare plurals on the other. The table below summarizes the data discussed in this section:

DOMed DOs move, unmarked DOs don't
Building on the Spanish data presented and discussed above, López (2012) argues that the interpretive and behavioural differences between Spanish DOMed and unmarked DOs boil down to a syntactic one: DOMed DOs undergo scrambling to a vP intermediary position, while unmarked DOs stay in-situ and incorporate with V (45): López (2012) argues in favour of an indirect mapping between syntax and semantics in the sense that the syntactic position occupied by the DO affects the mode of semantic composition, which in turn affects the interpretation of the sentence. The different modes of semantic composition thus explain the lack of specific readings with unmarked DOs and the availability of a specific interpretation with marked DOs, given that the former get interpreted by means of Restrict (cf. Chung/Ladusaw 2004;,14 while the latter end up in a position where they get interpreted by means of Choice Functions, in line with Reinhart (1997).15 , 16 13 EA stands for external argument. 14 Chung/Ladusaw (2004; propose an operation, Restrict, which enables the combination of the DO with its predicate by way of conjunction. As a consequence, the predicate remains unsaturated. López (2012) argues that unmarked indefinite DOs get interpreted by means of this mechanism, which explains why they necessarily have a narrow scope reading. 15 A choice function variable shifts a DP from a property denotation <e,t> to an entity one <e>. As a consequence, the DP may then be composed by Functional Application. Reinhart (1997) proposes that the choice function variable may be bound by an existential quantifier, which may be merged at different points within the derivational tree. This enables a suitable explanation for the different scopes that indefinites may give rise to e.g., the intermediate scope of the DO a friend in (1) below: (1) Every woman is convinced that if John invites a friend of his to the party, it will be a disaster. ∀x∃fCH(f)[woman (x) → convinced (x, [invite (John, f (friend of mine), party) → disaster (party)])] 'For every woman x there exists a (choice function that picks out a) friend of John's such that if John invites the friend picked out by the choice function to the party, x is convinced it will be a disaster' López (2012, 7) 16 In line with Diesing (1992), López (2012) argues that there is a correlation between the syntactic position occupied by the indefinite DO and its ability of acquiring a specific reading. Unlike According to López (2012), indefinite DOs which remain in their merge position may only be composed with their selecting predicate by means of Restrict. On the other hand, DOs which undergo (short) scrambling may only be interpreted by choice functions. The landing site of the (short-)scrambled DO is a position governed by small v, wherefrom the DP may not c-command the subject or other scope-taking operators within the clause. The fact that the DO in question may acquire a wide scope or a specific interpretation is a consequence of it having been interpreted by means of a choice function. Note, however, that the wide scope/specific reading does not always obtain as this interpretation is merely possible with marked DOs and may even be lost in appropriate contexts (e.g., the co-occurrence with cualquiera, or relatives containing a predicate in the subjunctive). This comes as a result of the indirect mapping between syntax and semantics, as argued in López (2012).
One argument in favour of the hypothesis that DOMed DOs move comes from binding dependencies with the IO and the subject DPs: marked DOs may bind the IO but not the Subject; unmarked DOs may bind neither the IO nor the subject: in (46) the DOMed DO a ningún i prisionero may bind the possessive within the IO a su i hijo. The same bound interpretation may obtain in (47). Unmarked DOs, on the other hand, stay in situ and will not be able to bind the IO. This is at stake in (48a) where the unmarked DO un hombre may not bind the anaphor within the IO a sí mismo. Expectedly, marking saves the derivation (48b): (46) [Context: What did the enemies do? The enemies delivered X to Y and Z to W, but....] Los enemigos no entregaron a su i hijo a/*Ø The enemies not delivered.they to his son dom/*Ø ningún i prisionero. no prisoner 'The enemies did not deliver any prisoner to his son. ' López (2012, 41) Diesing, however, López proposes an indirect mapping between configuration and semantic interpretation in that this mapping is mediated by the kind of operations which may apply in order to construct the compositional meaning of the verb and its complement. López thus pairs the syntactic positions occupied by the DO with different modes of semantic composition. See also Tigău (2010) for the relevance of the Mapping Hypothesis in Diesing (1992) with respect to the Romanian indefinite DOs.
(47) Los enemigos no entregaron a su i hijo a nadie i . The enemies not delivered.they to his son dom no.one 'The enemies delivered no one to his son. ' López (2012, 41) (48) a. * María le entregó a sí mismo un hombre. Maria him.cl.dat delivered to himself a man 'Maria delivered a man to himself.' b. María le entregó a sí mismo a un Maria him.cl.dat delivered to himself dom a hombre (cualquiera). man (no matter who) 'Maria delivered a man to himself. ' López (2012, 41) On the other hand, a DOMed DO may not bind into the subject: this is so due to the fact that the position that the marked DO reaches by undergoing scrambling does not c-command the EA. Example (49) shows this at stake: a quantifier-variable interpretation is not possible in this case, given that the DOMed DO ningún niño may not bind the possessive within the subject.
(49) [Context: So, what happened yesterday?] Ayer no atacó su *i propio padre a ningún i niño yesterday not attacked his own father dom no boy 'His own father attacked no boy yesterday. ' López (2012, 43) The binding data thus suggest that while Spanish unmarked DOs remain inside VP and never leave their in-situ position as complements of the lexical verb, marked DOs move to a position wherefrom they may c-command IOs but in which they are c-commanded by the external argument.

Movement and DP internal structure
As seen above, binding dependencies with the IO and Subject DPs uncover the different behaviour between DOMed DOs and their unmarked correspondents, supporting the hypothesis that the former move into a position wherefrom they may c-command the IO, while the latter stay in-situ. López (2012) argues that movement is motivated by the internal structure of the respective DP and directly related to the case checking mechanism at stake: unmarked DOs do not project a full structure and as a consequence they check case in-situ by incorporation into the verb (50). DOMed DOs, on the other hand, project as KPs and their K layer blocks incorporation (51). Consequently, these phrases have to move out of VP so as to acquire case. Movement to SpecαP is thus triggered by the case feature [uC] of the marked DO. This allows v to probe the marked DO and to assign it [Acc]: As already pointed out, the syntactic position that the DO occupies affects the mode of semantic composition, and this ultimately affects the interpretation of the sentence: DOs which remain in their merge position may only be composed with their selecting predicate by means of Restrict (cf. Chung/Ladusaw 2004;. DOs which undergo (short) scrambling may only be interpreted by choice functions (Reinhart 1997). Short scrambling of the marked DO thus amounts to a precondition for the application of a choice function, which in turn accounts for the (optional) specific and wide scope readings with that DO. Unmarked DOs, which are of <e,t> type never leave their in-situ position and compose with the verb via Restrict.17 17 One reviewer draws attention to the existence of unmarked inanimate DOs which may receive a specific interpretation in Spanish. We suggest that such nominals pattern with Romanian unmarked DOs, moving out of the VP and acquiring the specific reading by way of the application of a choice function (see section 4 for an analysis of Romanian unmarked DO). It might be possible that the strict division between marked and unmarked DOs described for Spanish in López

A tentative analysis for Romanian objects 4.1 On the differences between Spanish and Romanian DOs
As seen in section 2, Romanian and Spanish marked DOs exhibit a similar behaviour, while unmarked DOs behave differently in the two languages. In this respect, Romanian unmarked DOs pattern with marked DOs: both DOMed and unmarked DOs may be interpreted as specific and may outscope other scope bearing expressions. Secondly, both marked and unmarked DOs are allowed as arguments in small clauses, and object control contexts. Finally, both DOMed and unmarked DOs seem to be able to bind into the IO as may be seen in (52) Given that Romanian and Spanish pattern similarly when it comes to DOMed DOs, these DPs may be analyzed on a par with their Spanish correspondents along the lines of López (2012) extended upon above. We will thus take DOMed objects to have KP status and to leave their merge position within VP and scramble to SpecαP.
Given that Romanian unmarked DOs behave on a par with their marked counterparts with respect to all the relevant phenomena (specificity, wide scope, binding, small clauses, object control), we may posit that these DOs also undergo the same checking mechanism by way of scrambling to SpecαP as marked DO do. Since unmarked DOs are DPs, we may posit the following difference between 18 Dobrovie-Sorin and Cornilescu (2008) draw attention to the fact that when the DOMed DO has also been clitic doubled, it is possible for this DP to bind into the subject. Thus the CD and DOMed DO pe nici un copil ('any child') is said to bind the possessive within the dative DP: (1) Ieri, la ședința cu părinții, nu l-a criticat tatăl său i Yesterday at meeting.the with parents, no him.CL.ACC-has.he criticized father his pe nici un copil i .

DOM no one child
Intended reading: 'At the parents meeting yesterday his i father did not criticize any child i .' Romanian and Spanish: Romanian allows both KPs and DPs to scramble, while Spanish only allows scrambling of KPs. This proposal becomes problematic, however, if we consider some contexts where unmarked DOs seem to pattern with their Spanish correspondents: they never acquire a specific or wide scope readings and they seem to exhibit property status. Section 4.1.1 dwells on this.

Romanian strong and weak DPs
As already pointed out above, not all unmarked indefinites exhibit specific or wide scope readings: in (56) the unmarked indefinite un șoc ('a shock') may only allow a narrow scope reading with respect to the QP subject.
(56) Orice tânăr care nu învață de acasă să își Any young man who not learns from home subj refl.dat poarte singur de grijă, va suferi un șoc atunci când carry alone of care will suffer a shock then when va pleca la facultate într-alt oraș. will.he go at faculty to another city. 'Any young man who does not learn from home how to take care of himself, will suffer a shock when he will have to go to the university in a different city.' Similarly, the unmarked indefinite o rujeolă ('measles') may not outscope the QP subject or the conditional in (57).
(57) Dacă nu se iau măsuri, toți copiii din școală vor If not refl take measures all children from school will face o rujeolă de toată frumusețea. make a measles of all beauty 'If measures are not taken, all the children in school will catch really serious measles.' Consider also the following contexts, which require the use of nominals with property reading and disallow nominals denoting entities. As can be verified, unmarked indefinites and bare plurals are allowed in these contexts. Marked indefinites are out (for an extensive discussion see Cornilescu 2000, 31ff).
Consider first the case of post-verbal subjects with se (reflexive) passive. As shown by Cornilescu (2000), only nominals denoting properties are allowed in this context. As a consequence, bare plurals are allowed in this context (58b), while proper names, given their (only) <e> type reading are discarded as ungrammatical (58a): (58) a. *S-a adus Maria de la școală. refl.-has brought Mary from school 'Mary was brought from school.' b. S-au băgat banane la aprozar. refl.-have.they brought bananas at store 'They have supplied the store with bananas.' c. S-a adus de curând o girafă la grădina botanică. refl.-has brought of soon a giraffe at garden zoological 'The zoo was recently endowed with a giraffe.' As also noticed above, unmarked indefinites may function as the DO of have in its individual-object reading, a situation in which bare singulars and plurals are also allowed, while marked DOs are discarded. The observation was first made by Cornilescu (2000) building on Bleam (1999): (59) a. Maria are copii deștepți. Mary has children intelligent 'Mary has intelligent children.' b. Maria are un copil deștept.
Mary has a child intelligent 'Mary has an intelligent child.' c. *Maria are pe un copil deștept.19 Mary has dom a child intelligent Marked indefinites along with proper names or personal pronouns are rejected from these contexts where an individual level have occurs. This is because these nominals only have the object-level, <e> type reading. The contribution of K is to secure argumenthood.
19 This example may become acceptable under a reading along the lines of (1) below. Note that the meaning in this case is, however, significantly different: (1) Maria are pe un copil deștept care îi va rezolva problema în câteva Maria has pe a child smart who her.DAT will solve problem.the in few minute. minutes 'Mary knows a smart child who will solve the problem in a few minutes.' Together with the previous sections, the examples above show that unmarked DOs have a twofold behaviour: they may pattern with marked DOs in allowing for a specific and a wide scope interpretation, but they may also cause a similar behaviour to bare nouns being able to occur in those contexts which disallow marked DOs and to have a property-denotation. The idea that we would like to put forth is that in these latter contexts unmarked DOs may be reanalyzed as NP/ NumP (have the same status as bare nouns) and have a property reading. The following section offers some insights into the internal structure of bare nominals and draws a parallelism between these and unmarked DOs when used a property denoting expressions (see Cornilescu and Tigău ms. for a more extensive discussion). As it seems, these nominals never allow for specific readings and may not outscope extensional QPs or intensional operators. In fact, as pointed out by Carlson (1977), these nominals have narrowest scope. Indeed, the bare plural colegi in (61a) may only exhibit a dependent reading on the QP subject according to which the colleagues who get invited to dinner vary according to the employee. A wide scope reading interpretation according to which there are some colleagues such that any employee would invite them to dinner is completely out. Along the same lines, the bare plural in (61b) cannot outscope the conditional as no particular group of colleagues is targeted such that if they get invited, John gets upset:

Some insights from bare nominals and weak definites
(61) a. Orice angajat mai invită colegi la masă Any employee more invites colleagues at dinner din când în când, chiar dacă soția se supără. sometimes, even if wife.the refl annoys 'Any employee invites colleagues to dinner from time to time, even though this might upset the wife.' b. Dacă Maria invită colegi la masă, Ion se supără. if Mary invites colleagues at dinner, John REFL annoys 'If Mary invites colleagues to dinner, John gets upset.' In (61) above, the constituent, 'inviting colleagues' designates a particular type of complex activity, where the bare nominal acts as a restrictive modifier on the predicate.
Tănase-Dogaru (2009) shows that bare nominals are 'small size nominals' projecting a structure smaller than DP i.e., NP or at most NumPs. As such they can only combine with the verb by way of incorporation -at least when they merge in complement position. One further argument supporting this hypothesis is that bare singulars may only merge as VP complements. Similar observations have been drawn with respect to Spanish bare plurals, which also seem to obey the restriction of only surfacing in post-verbal position (Brugè/Brugger 1996).
The contexts presented in 4.1.1 above show that Romanian unmarked indefinites may pattern with bare nominals. In this particular case, we propose that unmarked DOs are reanalyzed as NP/NumP and remain in-situ and incorporate into the verb (just like bare nominals in Tănase-Dogaru 2009). As a consequence, they get interpreted via Restrict and never acquire specific, or wide scope readings. The examples in the following section building on weak definites further strengthen this hypothesis.

Weak definites
When used in their property reading, unmarked DOs also exhibit similar characteristics to definite descriptions, which have been shown to be able to function as property denoting nominals. Cornilescu and Nicolae (2012 and subsequent publications) argue that in this particular case these nominals have a weak reading and get projected as NPs: more specifically, the D head is not projected as such and the weak indefinite article functions as a quantifier or as an adjective, occupying the Specifier position of the nominal head: This is in line with the proposals already advanced for definite descriptions, which may also exhibit property readings and which have been analyzed as NPs in this case (Cornilescu/Nicolae 2012 (63), where the definite nominal exhibits a property reading. In this case the definite expression seems to be a NP/NumP, where the definite article functions as the specifier (64) along the lines of Emonds (1985) who argues that determiners are in fact former adjectives and as such function as specifiers of nominal heads. Cornilescu/Nicolae (2012) support this hypothesis of the reanalysis of the DP arguing that reanalysis is only necessary for property readings of definites. Strong determiners will follow the lines of analysis in (65)

A parametrization
As discussed, marked indefinites are KPs and only have the object-level, <e> type reading. The contribution of K is to secure argumenthood. As a consequence, nominals thus marked may only be interpreted as arguments (never as properties) and need to scramble to a position where they may combine with the verb by means of functional application. In this respect, Romanian marked indefinites pattern with marked DOs in Spanish. Bleam (1999;2005) shows that DOMed nominals denote individuals <e> or generalized quantifiers <<e,t>t> and argues that the DOM marker acts as a filter on the DP denotation, filtering away the property reading.
On the other hand, unmarked indefinites may function as DPs and as such may give rise to the same readings as marked indefinites (specificity, wide scope, binding dependencies) and undergo scrambling to SpecαP for case reasons. The fact that they reach this position enables them to get interpreted via Choice Functions, on a par with their marked counterparts. Nevertheless, Romanian unmarked DPs may also undergo reanalysis, receiving a NP status and stay in-situ just like unmarked DOs in Spanish.
A suitable analysis of Romanian data should thus account for the contrasts between Romanian and Spanish unmarked indefinites: the Spanish a-stripped nominals may only be property denoting combining with the verb by means of incorporation and never leaving their merge position. Romanian unmarked indefinite DOs exhibit a twofold behaviour: as DPs they may have argumental status and pattern on a par with marked DOs, or they may undergo reanalysis to NP and behave similarly to other property denoting nominals (e.g., bare plurals). In this latter case, they closely follow in the footsteps of Spanish unmarked DOs. The basic tenets of DO analysis in the two languages may be schematically represented as in table (2). As it seems, while DPs in Spanish incorporate (López 2012), Romanian only allows for the incorporation of nominals with an even smaller internal structure i.e., NP/NumP;20 nominals with DP status in Romanian do not incorporate: The parameter that differentiates between Spanish and Romanian thus has to do with the types of nominals that must undergo scrambling: while scrambling is restricted to KPs in Spanish, Romanian allows both KPs and DPs to scramble. The parametrization we arrived at: a. Spanish only allows KPs to scramble. DPs stay in-situ along with nominals exhibiting a smaller structure e.g., NPs. b. Romanian allows the scrambling of both KPs and DPs. Nominals with a smaller structure do not scramble.
Also, while Spanish DPs incorporate, Romanian allows incorporation only with nominal expressions whose internal structure is smaller than DP i.e., NP/NumP (66).
(66) KP > DP > NumP > NP As argued by Longobardi (1994 and subsequent publications), the locus of argumenthood is the determiner, which is sufficient for reference. Consequently, 20 One reviewer points out that weak definites may not have a NumP status given that they are number neutral (Poesio 1994;Carlson/Sussman 2005;Carlson et al. 2006 a.o.).
nominal expressions with supplementary marking of referential status also count as arguments and, as such, must undergo scrambling and compose with the predicate by means of Function Application.

Conclusions
This paper has discussed various aspects regarding the syntax and semantics of Romanian DOs from a comparative perspective with their Spanish correspondents. It has been shown that DOMed DOs behave on a par in the two languages, allowing a specific interpretation, wide scope readings, binding into the IO etc. In terms of their internal structure these nominals are KPs and scramble from their merge position in order to value their case feature. This movement also allows their interpretation via choice functions, which in turn accounts for their possible specific/wide scope interpretation. Unmarked DOs, on the other hand, constitute a locus of difference between the two languages: Romanian unmarked DOs exhibit the same distribution as DOMed DOs. In contrast, Spanish unmarked DOs, which have DP status, never scramble from their merge position and never acquire wide scope/specific readings.
The similarity between the marked DOs and the differences regarding their unmarked correspondents in the two languages led to a parametrization of the syntactic account put forth in this article: Romanian DOs merge as c-selected complements of V and need to check Accusative case. On a par with Spanish, Romanian resorts to two strategies of case valuation: a. DOs which project as NPs check case in situ by means of (semantic) incorporation. This amounts to having their [uCase] feature valued when the lexical verb moves to v. Incorporating objects are interpreted as predicates/ properties (expressions of type <e, t>) and form complex predicates with V. b. DOs projecting as DPs or KPs in Romanian may not incorporate and have to move to a higher position between v and V, where they verify their [uCase] feature by way of agreement with v. The fact that these nominals undergo scrambling finds support in the availability of strong readings i.e., wide scope, specificity a.o. Scrambling DOs are interpreted as arguments and combine with the verb by Function Application.
As seen, marked and unmarked DOs exhibit the same distribution in Romanian. Nevertheless, marked DOs necessarily scramble, while this remains an option for unmarked objects, which may scramble. This difference follows from the fact that, while DPs may be re-analyzed as NP/NumPs, KPs may not. Scrambled DOs, whether marked or unmarked are semantically equivalent, in that they have the same scope properties, their reference may be stable ("epistemically specific") or unstable (non-specific).