A corpus-based analysis of object indexing in Hewramî

Abstract Hewramî (ISO 639-3) is an Iranic language featuring tense-sensitive alignment, characterised in terms of indexing by employing two sets of bound person markers for expressing direct objects. In TAM categories based on past stem verbs, the direct object is expressed by suffixal person/number morphology. However, the index may be absent under certain conditions. This article explores object indexing in Hewramî, considering its token frequency in discourse and factors conditioning differential object indexing (DOI). The data come from two spoken corpora of over 35,000 words from the Tekht variety of Hewramî. The corpus data were annotated for factors such as animacy, identifiability, person of the referent and textual givenness. The data provide some support for the complementarity hypothesis, meaning that agreement markers slightly favour zero object arguments. The most decisive factor triggering the lack of indexing with overt Os is the co-optation of the agreement slot by a higher-ranked argument. But when taking semantic-referential features into account, the person of the object referent strongly predicts differential object indexing. With the direct object being 3 pl and the NP modified, animacy predicts DOI.