Scrambling, Specificity Effects, and Phasal Variation in Turkish and Uyghur

Abstract This article develops a new approach to specificity effects based on comparing differential object marking (DOM) in Turkish with a novel DOM paradigm observed in Uyghur. Based on this, I argue that specificity does not always correlate with VP-externality (Diesing 1992, i.a.) but rather with whether the object has moved to a particular structural position. Further, I show the variation observed between the two DOM paradigms can be captured as a result of a difference between the languages’ middle-field phase boundary. Several additional contrasts between the two languages are traced back to this difference in phase boundaries, which is also situated within a broader pattern of typological variation.