Spanish
A well-known DOM language is Spanish. In Spanish, direct objects that are both human and specific require a special marker (the preposition a "to"):
- Pedro besó a Lucía. = Peter kissed Lucy. (Literally, "Peter kissed to Lucy")
Inanimate direct objects do not usually allow this marker, even if they are specific:
- Pedro besó el retrato. = Peter kissed the picture.
Yet, some animate objects that are specific can optionally bear the marker:
- Pedro vio (a) la gata. = Peter saw (to) the cat
Read more about this topic: Differential Object Marking
Famous quotes containing the word spanish:
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Wheeler: Aren’t you the fellow the Mexicans used to call “Brachine”?
Dude: That’s nearly right. Only it’s “Borracho.”
Wheeler: I don’t think I ever seen you like this before.
Dude: You mean sober. You’re probably right. You know what “Borracho” means?
Wheeler: My Spanish ain’t too good.
Dude: It means drunk. No, if the name bothers ya’ they used to call me Dude.”
—Jules Furthman (1888–1960)
“Stiller ... took part in the Spanish Civil War ... It is not clear what impelled him to this military gesture. Probably many factors were combined—a rather romantic Communism, such as was common among bourgeois intellectuals at that time.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)