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:
“In French literature, you can choose “à la carte”; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“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)