Verbal semantics and differential object marking in Lycopolitan Coptic

This paper seeks to clarify the role of affectedness for the marking of direct objects through
an analysis of a corpus of Lycopolitan Coptic texts (4th to 5th centuries AD). Whereas previ-
ous research has shown the importance of definiteness for the use of the direct object marker
n with the so-called imperfective tenses (present and imperfect), it has proven more diffi-
cult to establish why it alternates in the non-imperfective with a zero marker. An attempt
is made here to correlate the two different object constructions to Tsunoda’s verb-type hier-
archy, which was conceived to capture the degree of affectedness. It appears that the more
affected a direct object is, the more likely it is to receive the direct object marker; whenever
the object is little affected or unaffected, the zero-marked construction is preferred.