A double-marking language is one in which the

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the

heads A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals m ...

(or nuclei) of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents. Pervasive double-marking is rather rare, but instances of double-marking occur in many

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

s. For example, in Turkish, in a genitive construction involving two definite nouns, both the possessor and the possessed are marked, the former with a suffix marking the possessor (and corresponding to a

possessive adjective Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do ...

in English) and the latter in the

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

. For example, 'brother' is ''kardeş,'' and 'dog' is ''köpek,'' but 'brother's dog' is ''kardeşin köpeği.'' (The consonant change is part of a regular consonant lenition.) Another example is a language in which endings that mark

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

are used to indicate the role of both nouns and their associated modifiers (such as adjectives) in a sentence (such as Russian and Spanish) or in which case endings are supplemented by verb endings marking the subject,

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include b ...

and/or indirect object of a sentence.

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

had double-marking in both verb phrases (verbs were marked for person and number, nominals for case) and noun-adjective phrases (both marked with the same case-and-number endings) but not in possessive phrases (only the dependent was marked).

References

*Nichols, J. 1986. Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar. ''Language'' 62, 1, 56-119. {{DEFAULTSORT:Double-Marking Language Linguistic typology

See also

References